Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===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}}