Murder
The people who were selected as “unfit for work” upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau were brought directly to the crematories from the ramp. The crematories were killing complexes with large antechambers, gas chambers and incinerators together in a single building.
Upon arrival the people had to take off their clothes and were then driven into the gas chambers. But first, to avoid panic, they were deceived by signs and by the SS men and the inmates of the “Sonderkommando”, the special unit, who told them they were going into the room to take a shower.
The murder itself took place in airtight rooms into which Zyklon B, a poison gas, was poured. It could take up to 15 minutes until all the people had agonisingly suffocated. Then the inmates of the special commando had to remove the corpses, examine them and incinerate them.
In the early summer of 1944 five murder facilities were in operation in Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Crematories II to V and a gas chamber called “Bunker 2” a total of up to 8,000 people could be murdered and incinerated in a single day.
The pictures in the “Auschwitz Album” show men, women and children in a grove near the entrance to Crematorium IV. They are waiting in front of the building where they are to be murdered. They have to wait because other groups are still being murdered inside the gas chamber.