Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

==Selection and extermination process==
===Gas chambers===
[[File:Crematorium at Auschwitz I 2012.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|A reconstruction of crematorium I, Auschwitz I, 2014{{sfn|Dwork|van Pelt|2002|p=363}}]]
The first gassings at Auschwitz took place on September 3, 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.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|pp=157–159}} Tens of thousands were killed in crematorium I.<ref name="Müller 1999 31"/> To keep the victims calm, they were told they were to undergo disinfection and [[Delousing|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.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|pp=159–160}} 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.{{sfn|Dwork|van Pelt|2002|p=364}}
{{multiple image
| direction = vertical 
| align = right
| width = 220
|image1 = Birkenau, Poland, Selection on the platform.jpg
|caption1 = Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz II, May/June 1944
| image2 = Arrival platform at Birkenau.jpg
| caption2 =Crematoria II and III and their chimneys are visible in the background, left and right.
| image3 = Birkenau a group of Jews walking towards the gas chambers and crematoria.jpg
| caption3 = 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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jewish women and children who have been selected for death, walk in a line towards the gas chambers. |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa8538 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=26 January 2019 |archive-date=2 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200302120045/https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa8538 |url-status=live }}</ref>
}}

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.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|pp=161–162}} In summer 1944 the combined capacity of the crematoria and outdoor incineration pits was 20,000 bodies per day.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|p=174}} A planned sixth facility—crematorium VI—was never built.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|p=175}}

From 1942, Jews were being transported to Auschwitz from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys.<ref>{{harvnb|Piper|2000b|pp=12–13}}; {{harvnb|Browning|2004|p=421}}.</ref> The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from May to July 1944, during the [[History of the Jews in Hungary#History of the Jews in Hungary|Holocaust in Hungary]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=407}} 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.{{sfn|Dwork|van Pelt|2002|p=338}} 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.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=408}} 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.{{sfn|Dwork|van Pelt|2002|p=338}} The incoming volume was so great that the ''Sonderkommando'' resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.{{sfn|Dwork|van Pelt|2002|pp=341–343}}

===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 murdered soon after arrival.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=227}} Adding non-Jewish victims gives a figure of 900,000 who were murdered without being registered.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=229}}

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.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=103ff}} Practically any fault—scars, bandages, boils and emaciation—might provide reason enough to be deemed unfit.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|pp=109–110}} 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.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=111}} Inmates unable to walk or who arrived at night were taken to the crematoria on trucks; otherwise, the new arrivals were marched there.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|pp=162, 169}} Their belongings were seized and sorted by inmates in the [[Kanada warehouses, Auschwitz|"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.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|pp=97–98}}

===Inside the crematoria===
[[File:Entrance to Crematorium III in Auschwitz II (Birkenau).jpg|thumb|Entrance to crematorium III, Auschwitz II, 2008{{sfn|Baxter|2017|p=241}}]]
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'').{{sfn|Piper|1998c|pp=166, 168}} 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.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=169, n.&nbsp;489}} Some inmates were given soap and a towel.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=169, n.&nbsp;490}} A gas chamber could hold up to 2,000.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=169}}

The Zyklon B was delivered to the crematoria by a special SS bureau known as the Hygiene Institute.<ref>{{harvnb|Piper|1998c|p=162}}; also see {{harvnb|Piper|2000b|p=170}}.</ref> 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.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=170}} [[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":{{sfn|Cohen|1998|pp=529, 531}}
{{blockquote|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&nbsp;[...] 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.&nbsp;... And in the meantime, their voices grew weaker and weaker&nbsp;... 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.{{sfn|Langfus|2000|p=357}}}}

===Use of corpses===
[[File:Auschwitz Resistance 282 cropped.JPG|thumb|One of the [[Sonderkommando photographs|''Sonderkommando'' photographs]]: Women on their way to the gas chamber, Auschwitz II, August 1944]]
''Sonderkommando'' wearing gas masks dragged the bodies from the chamber. They removed glasses and artificial limbs and shaved off the women's hair;{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=170}} women's hair was removed before they entered the gas chamber at [[Belzec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], but at Auschwitz it was done after death.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=408}} By 6 February 1943, the Reich Economic Ministry had received 3,000&nbsp;kg of women's hair from Auschwitz and [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]].{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=408}} The hair was first cleaned in a solution of [[sal ammoniac]], dried on the brick floor of the crematoria, combed, and placed in paper bags.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=409}} The hair was shipped to various companies, including one manufacturing plant in [[Bremen|Bremen-Bluementhal]], where workers found tiny coins with Greek letters on some of the braids, possibly from some of the 50,000 Greek Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1943.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=411}} When they liberated the camp in January 1945, the Red Army found 7,000&nbsp;kg of human hair in bags ready to ship.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=409}}

Just before cremation, jewelry was removed, along with dental work and teeth containing precious metals.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=171}} Gold was removed from the teeth of dead prisoners from 23 September 1940 onwards by order of Heinrich Himmler.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=400}} The work was carried out by members of the ''Sonderkommando'' who were dentists; anyone overlooking dental work might themselves be cremated alive.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=171}} The gold was sent to the SS Health Service and used by dentists to treat the SS and their families; 50&nbsp;kg had been collected by 8 October 1942.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=400}} By early 1944, 10–12&nbsp;kg of gold was being extracted monthly from victims' teeth.{{sfn|Strzelecki|2000b|p=406}}

The corpses were burned in the nearby incinerators, and the ashes were buried, thrown in the [[Vistula]] river, or used as fertilizer. Any bits of bone that had not burned properly were ground down in wooden [[Mortar and pestle|mortar]]s.{{sfn|Piper|1998c|p=171}}

===Death toll{{anchor|numbers}}===
[[File:Arrivals and inmates on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, summer 1944 (Auschwitz Album).jpg|thumb|New arrivals, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, May/June 1944]]
At least 1.3&nbsp;million people were sent to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, and at least 1.1&nbsp;million died.<ref name=Piperfigures/> Overall 400,207 prisoners were registered in the camp: 268,657 male and 131,560 female.{{sfn|Strzelecka|2000c|p=171}} A study in the late 1980s by Polish historian [[Franciszek Piper]], published by [[Yad Vashem]] in 1991,<ref>{{harvnb|Piper|1991|pp=49–103}}; {{harvnb|van Pelt|2016|p=109}}; also see {{cite news |last1=Stets |first1=Dan |title=Fixing the numbers at Auschwitz |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-05-07-9202100662-story.html |work=Chicago Tribune |date=7 May 1992 |access-date=2 February 2019 |archive-date=3 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190203030723/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-05-07-9202100662-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate that, of the 1.3&nbsp;million sent to the camp, 1,082,000 had died there, a figure (rounded up to 1.1&nbsp;million) that Piper regarded as a minimum.<ref name=Piperfigures>{{harvnb|Piper|2000b|pp=230–231}}; also see {{harvnb|Piper|1998b|pp=71–72}}.</ref> That figure came to be widely accepted.{{efn|[[Robert Jan van Pelt]] (''The Case for Auschwitz'', 2002): "This figure [1.1 million] has been endorsed by all serious, professional historians who have studied the complex history of Auschwitz in some detail, by the Holocaust research institute at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C."{{sfn|van Pelt|2016|p=109}}{{pb}}
Earlier estimates included [[Raul Hilberg]]'s 1961 work, ''[[The Destruction of the European Jews]]'', which estimated that up to one million Jews had died in the camp.<ref>{{harvnb|Hilberg|1961|p=958}}; also see {{harvnb|Piper|2000b|p=214}}.</ref> In 1983 French scholar George Wellers was one of the first to use German data on deportations to calculate the death toll; he arrived at a figure of 1,471,595 deaths, including 1.35&nbsp;million Jews and 86,675 non-Jewish Poles.<ref>{{harvnb|Piper|1998b|p=67}}; {{harvnb|Piper|2000b|p=214}}.</ref>}}

The Germans tried to conceal how many they had murdered. In July 1942, according to Rudolf Höss's post-war memoir, Höss received an order from [[Heinrich Himmler]], via [[Adolf Eichmann]]'s office and SS commander [[Paul Blobel]], that "[a]ll mass graves were to be opened and the corpses burned. In addition, the ashes were to be disposed of in such a way that it would be impossible at some future time to calculate the number of corpses burned."<ref>{{harvnb|Höss|2003|p=188}}; also see {{harvnb|Friedländer|2007|p=404}}.</ref>

Earlier estimates of the death toll were higher than Piper's. Following the camp's liberation, the Soviet government issued a statement, on 8 May 1945, that four million people had been murdered on the site, a figure based on the capacity of the crematoria.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|pp=210–213}} Höss told prosecutors at Nuremberg that at least 2,500,000 people had been gassed there, and that another 500,000 had died of starvation and disease.{{sfn|The International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg|1946|p=415}} He testified that the figure of over two million had come from Eichmann.{{sfn|The International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg|1946|p=397}} In his memoirs, written in custody, Höss wrote that Eichmann had given the figure of 2.5&nbsp;million to Höss's superior officer [[Richard Glücks]], based on records that had been destroyed.{{sfn|Höss|2003|p=193}} Höss regarded this figure as "far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities," he wrote.{{sfn|Höss|2003|p=194}}

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:98%; text-align:left; float:center; margin-left:10px;"
|-
! Nationality/ethnicity<br />(Source: [[Franciszek Piper]]){{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=230}} !! Registered deaths<br />(Auschwitz) !! Unregistered deaths<br />(Auschwitz) !! Total
|-
| [[Jew]]s || 95,000 || 865,000 || 960,000
|-
| [[Polish people|Ethnic Poles]] || 64,000 || 10,000 || 74,000 (70,000–75,000)
|-
| [[Romani people|Roma]] and [[Sinti]] || 19,000 || 2,000 || 21,000
|-
| [[German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|Soviet prisoners of war]] || 12,000 || 3,000 || 15,000
|-
| Other [[Ethnic groups in Europe|Europeans]]:<br />[[Soviet people|Soviet citizens]] ([[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|Byelorussians]], [[Russians]], [[Ukrainians]]),<br />[[Czechs]], [[Yugoslavs]], [[French people|French]], [[Germans]], [[Austrians]] || 10,000–15,000 || n/a || 10,000–15,000
|-
| '''Total deaths in Auschwitz, 1940–1945''' ||200,000–205,000 || 880,000|| 1,080,000–1,085,000
|}

Around one in six Jews murdered in the Holocaust died in Auschwitz.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=383}} By nation, the greatest number of Auschwitz's Jewish victims originated from Hungary, accounting for 430,000 deaths, followed by Poland (300,000), France (69,000), Netherlands (60,000), Greece (55,000), Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (46,000), Slovakia (27,000), Belgium (25,000), Germany and Austria (23,000), Yugoslavia (10,000), Italy (7,500), Norway (690), and others (34,000).<ref name=Ethnicity>{{cite web |title=Ethnic origins and number of victims of Auschwitz |url=http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89 |publisher=Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190202034044/http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89&lang=en |archive-date=2 February 2019}}</ref> [[Timothy Snyder]] writes that fewer than one percent of the million Soviet Jews murdered in the Holocaust were murdered in Auschwitz.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=275}} Of the at least 387 Jehovah's Witnesses who were imprisoned at Auschwitz, 132 died in the camp.<ref>[http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jehovahs-witnesses/ "Jehovah's Witnesses"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601173543/http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jehovahs-witnesses |date=1 June 2019 }}. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.</ref>