Freshly off the trains, the newcomers had shoes, clothes, and most importantly, reserves of food. The newcomers were dropped into a completely different world, where the inhabitants had lived for two years, watching the hardships grow more acute. Most of these newcomers never adjusted to ghetto life and in the end, boarded the transports to their death with the thought that they must be going somewhere better than the ghetto. We are forced to take about 5000 Gypsies into the ghetto. I've explained that we cannot live together with them.
Gypsies are the sort of people who can to anything.
When the Roma arrived, they were housed in a separate area of the ghetto. Though Chelmno had only been in operation for two days, the Nazis wanted 20,000 Jews deported out of the ghetto. Rumkowski talked them down to 10,000. Lists were put together by ghetto officials. The remaining Roma were the first to be deported.