CHANGE INTO A DEATH CAMP

By September 1941, the SS was experimenting with methods of mass execution. In Sachsenhausen, the shot in the back of the head was used; in Auschwitz, the SS favoured the use of Zyklon B, a commercial cyanide pesticide.

IÑAKI MUR. Zyklon B cans (CC0)

The Auschwitz camp underwent a major transformation from the late summer of 1941 to the spring of 1942: Murderous experiments with Zyklon B were conducted in the basement of Barracks 11; a gas chamber was added to Crematorium 1 and two neighbouring cottages in Auschwitz-Birkenau, known as Bunker 1 and Bunker 2, were converted for this purpose; the Sonderkommando ("special unit for helping in cleaning tasks ") was established, and several tests for disposing of the corpses. The compound ceased to function as an overflowing prison or labor camp designed to realize the utopian Nazi worldview and was modernized to carry out its genocidal mission.

Iñaki Mur (CC0)

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz in July 1942. He witnessed the arrival of a train carrying 2,000 Jews from the Netherlands and the selection and murder of those deemed unfit for work. During this visit, he also informed the camp Kommandant, Rudolf Höss, that Auschwitz would play a decisive role in the Final Solution.

The SS architects modified the existing plan for a large crematorium, which had been developed during the autumn of 1941 with the intention of addressing the expected mortality rate in the camp as a whole, to convert one of the underground mortuaries into a room in which to disrobe the victims and the other into a gas chamber. The SS decided to build two such sets, which were called crematoria 2 and 3, and commissioned two other smaller ones, called 4 and 5, equipped with gas chambers from their very design. These four facilities, which, according to their constructors, offered a daily cremation capacity of 4,416 bodies, were put into operation between mid-March and July 1943.

Iñaki Mur (CC0)