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The Auschwitz Gas Chambers
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The first gassings at Auschwitz took place in early September 1941, when around 850 inmates—Soviet prisoners of war and sick Polish inmates—were killed with Zyklon B in the basement of block 11 in Auschwitz I. The building proved unsuitable, so gassings were conducted instead in crematorium I, also in Auschwitz I, which operated until December 1942. There, more than 700 victims could be killed at once.[192] Tens of thousands were killed in crematorium I.[47] To keep the victims calm, they were told they were to undergo disinfection and de-lousing; they were ordered to undress outside, then were locked in the building and gassed. After its decommissioning as a gas chamber, the building was converted to a storage facility and later served as an SS air raid shelter.[193] The gas chamber and crematorium were reconstructed after the war. Dwork and van Pelt write that a chimney was recreated; four openings in the roof were installed to show where the Zyklon B had entered; and two of the three furnaces were rebuilt with the original components.[29]

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Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz II, May/June 1944

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Crematoria II and III and their chimneys are visible in the background, left and right.

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Jewish women and children from Hungary walking toward the gas chamber, Auschwitz II, May/June 1944. The gate on the left leads to sector BI, the oldest part of the camp.[194]

In early 1942, mass exterminations were moved to two provisional gas chambers (the "red house" and "white house", known as bunkers 1 and 2) in Auschwitz II, while the larger crematoria (II, III, IV, and V) were under construction. Bunker 2 was temporarily reactivated from May to November 1944, when large numbers of Hungarian Jews were gassed.[195] In summer 1944 the combined capacity of the crematoria and outdoor incineration pits was 20,000 bodies per day.[196] A planned sixth facility—crematorium VI—was never built.[197]

From 1942 Jews were being transported to Auschwitz from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys.[198] The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from May to July 1944, during the Holocaust in Hungary.[199] A rail spur leading to crematoria II and III in Auschwitz II was completed that May, and a new ramp was built between sectors BI and BII to deliver the victims closer to the gas chambers (images top right). On 29 April the first 1,800 Jews from Hungary arrived at the camp.[200] From 14 May until early July 1944, 437,000 Hungarian Jews, half the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period.[122] The crematoria had to be overhauled. Crematoria II and III were given new elevators leading from the stoves to the gas chambers, new grates were fitted, and several of the dressing rooms and gas chambers were painted. Cremation pits were dug behind crematorium V.[200] The incoming volume was so great that the Sonderkommando resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.[201]

Selection

According to Polish historian Franciszek Piper, of the 1,095,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz, around 205,000 were registered in the camp and given serial numbers; 25,000 were sent to other camps; and 865,000 were killed soon after arrival.[202] Adding non-Jewish victims gives a figure of 900,000 who were killed without being registered.[203]

During "selection" on arrival, those deemed able to work were sent to the right and admitted into the camp (registered), and the rest were sent to the left to be gassed. The group selected to die included almost all children, women with small children, the elderly, and others who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be fit for work.[204] Practically any fault—scars, bandages, boils and emaciation—might provide reason enough to be deemed unfit.[205] Children might be made to walk toward a stick held at a certain height; those who could walk under it were selected for the gas.[206] Inmates unable to walk or who arrived at night were taken to the crematoria on trucks; otherwise the new arrivals were marched there.[207] Their belongings were seized and sorted by inmates in the "Kanada" warehouses, an area of the camp in sector BIIg that housed 30 barracks used as storage facilities for plundered goods; it derived its name from the inmates' view of Canada as a land of plenty.[208]

Inside the crematoria

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Entrance to crematorium III, Auschwitz II, 2008[209]

The crematoria consisted of a dressing room, gas chamber, and furnace room. In crematoria II and III, the dressing room and gas chamber were underground; in IV and V, they were on the ground floor. The dressing room had numbered hooks on the wall to hang clothes. In crematorium II, there was also a dissection room (Sezierraum).[210] SS officers told the victims they had to take a shower and undergo delousing. The victims undressed in the dressing room and walked into the gas chamber; signs said "Bade" (bath) or "Desinfektionsraum" (disinfection room). A former prisoner testified that the language of the signs changed depending on who was being killed.[211] Some inmates were given soap and a towel.[212] A gas chamber could hold up to 2,000; one former prisoner said it was around 3,000.[213]

The Zyklon B was delivered to the crematoria by a special SS bureau known as the Hygiene Institute.[214] After the doors were shut, SS men dumped in the Zyklon B pellets through vents in the roof or holes in the side of the chamber. The victims were usually dead within 10 minutes; Rudolf Höss testified that it took up to 20 minutes.[215] Leib Langfus, a member of the Sonderkommando, buried his diary (written in Yiddish) near crematorium III in Auschwitz II. It was found in 1952, signed "A.Y.R.A":[216]

It would be difficult to even imagine that so many people would fit in such a small [room]. Anyone who did not want to go inside was shot [...] or torn apart by the dogs. They would have suffocated from the lack of air within several hours. Then all the doors were sealed tight and the gas thrown in by way of a small hole in the ceiling. There was nothing more that the people inside could do. And so they only screamed in bitter, lamentable voices. Others complained in voices full of despair, and others still sobbed spasmodically and sent up a dire, heart-rending weeping. ... And in the meantime, their voices grew weaker and weaker ... Because of the great crowding, people fell one atop another as they died, until a heap arose consisting of five or six layers atop the other, reaching a height of one meter. Mothers froze in a seated position on the ground embracing their children in their arms, and husbands and wives died hugging each other. Some of the people made up a formless mass. Others stood in a leaning position, while the upper parts, from the stomach up, were in a lying position. Some of the people had turned completely blue under the influence of the gas, while others looks entirely fresh, as if they were asleep.[217]
presentation Section: Loved Ones Lost, Enduring Occupation And The War

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