the campgrounds held about 500 male Jewish inmates who were given the task of running the camp's so-called "self-administration" and were made responsible for distributing food, dividing up labour, and organizing a Jewish guard force which patrolled along the camp. The exterior of the camp, however, was guarded on a rotation basis by twenty-five members of Reserve Police Battalion 64. By October, all male Jewish inmates and most male Romani inmates were killed. Most were executed in four major waves, with frequent killings occurring in mid-September and between 9 and 11 October. On each occasion, inmates were told that they were being transported to a camp in Austria with better labour conditions but were instead taken to Jabuka in the Banat or to a firing range on the outskirts of Belgrade, where they were killed. Sajmište officially opened on a wider scale on 28 October 1941. The last of the initial male Jewish inmates were killed on 11 November. Judenlager Semlin At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, approximately 7,000 Jewish women, children and old men were brought to the camp, along with a further 500 Jewish men and 292 Romani women and children. Most of these people were from the outlying Serbian towns, primarily Niš, Smederevo and Šabac. Women and children were placed in makeshift barracks that were barely heated, and whose windows were shattered due to German bombing raids carried out during the invasion of Yugoslavia. Originally constructed as fair pavilions, the largest of these barracks held up to 5,000 prisoners. Inmates suffered during numerous influenza epidemics, slept on wet straw or bare floorboards, and were provided with inadequate amounts of food. Starvation was widespread, and Jewish inmates appealed unsuccessfully to Serbian authorities for more food to be provided to the camp. Consequently, a high number of detainees, especially children, died in late 1941 and early 1942, with many inmates freezing to death in one of the coldest winters on record. The Romani inmates were kept in far more miserable conditions than their Jewish counterparts. They also slept on straw in an unheated hall, but were kept separate from non-Romani prisoners. The majority of Romani inmates were released after six weeks of detention. Most Jewish inmates remained detained, with the exception of ten Jewish women who were married to Christian men. In January 1942, SS-Untersturmführer Herbert Andorfer was appointed to replace the inexperienced Enge as