Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===Auschwitz II-Birkenau{{anchor|Auschwitz II–Birkenau|Birkenau}}===<!-- This section is linked from [[Treblinka extermination camp]] -->
{{redirect|Birkenau}}

====Construction====
{{multiple image
| direction = vertical
| align = right
| width = 220
| image1 = Gate of Auschwitz II, 28 November 2007 (3).jpg
| caption1 = Auschwitz II-Birkenau gate from inside the camp, 2007
| image2 = Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 1a.jpg
| caption2 = Same scene, May/June 1944, with the gate in the background. "Selection" of [[Holocaust in Hungary|Hungarian Jews]] for work or the [[gas chamber]]. From the [[Auschwitz Album]], taken by the camp's [[Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst|Erkennungsdienst]].
| image3 = Museum Auschwitz Birkenau.jpg
| caption3 = Gate with the camp remains in the background, 2009<!--
| image4 = Auschwitz Resistance 280 cropped.jpg
| caption4 = Outside crematorium V, Auschwitz II, August 1944; one of the [[Sonderkommando photographs|''Sonderkommando'' photographs]].-->
}}
After visiting Auschwitz I in March 1941, it appears that Himmler ordered that the camp be expanded,{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=144}} although [[Peter Hayes (historian)|Peter Hayes]] notes that, on 10 January 1941, the Polish underground told the [[Polish government-in-exile]] in London: "the Auschwitz concentration camp&nbsp;...can accommodate approximately 7,000 prisoners at present, and is to be rebuilt to hold approximately 30,000."{{sfn|Hayes|2003|p=335}} Construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau—called a ''Kriegsgefangenenlager'' (prisoner-of-war camp) on blueprints—began in October 1941 in [[Brzezinka]], about three kilometers from Auschwitz I.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|pp=144, 155 for ''Kriegsgefangenenlager''}} The initial plan was that Auschwitz II would consist of four sectors (Bauabschnitte I–IV), each consisting of six subcamps (BIIa–BIIf) with their own gates and fences. The first two sectors were completed (sector BI was initially a quarantine camp), but the construction of BIII began in 1943 and stopped in April 1944, and the plan for BIV was abandoned.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|pp=80–83}}<!--describe the sectors-->

SS-Sturmbannführer [[Karl Bischoff]], an architect, was the chief of construction.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=144}} Based on an initial budget of [[Reichsmark|RM]] 8.9&nbsp;million, his plans called for each barracks to hold 550 prisoners, but he later changed this to 744 per barracks, which meant the camp could hold 125,000, rather than 97,000.{{sfn|van Pelt|1998|pp=118–119}} There were 174 barracks, each measuring {{cvt|116|by|36|ft|order=flip|1}}, divided into 62 bays of {{cvt|43|sqft|order=flip|0}}. The bays were divided into "roosts", initially for three inmates and later for four. With personal space of {{cvt|11|sqft|order=flip|0}} to sleep and place whatever belongings they had, inmates were deprived, [[Robert-Jan van Pelt]] wrote, "of the minimum space needed to exist".{{sfn|van Pelt|1998|pp=122–123}}

The prisoners were forced to live in the barracks as they were building them; in addition to working, they faced long roll calls at night. As a result, most prisoners in BIb (the men's camp) in the early months died of [[hypothermia]], starvation or exhaustion within a few weeks.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|p=87}} Some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I between 7 and 25 October 1941,{{sfn|Czech|2000|pp=138–139}} but by 1 March 1942 only 945 were still registered; they were transferred to Auschwitz II,{{sfn|Czech|2000|p=142}} where most of them had died by May.{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|p=94}}

====Crematoria II–V====
{{Further|#Gas chambers}}
The first gas chamber at Auschwitz II was operational by March 1942. On or around 20 March, a transport of Polish Jews sent by the Gestapo from [[Silesia]] and [[Dąbrowa Basin|Zagłębie Dąbrowskie]] was taken straight from the [[Oświęcim]] freight station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, then buried in a nearby meadow.{{sfn|Czech|2000|p=143}} The gas chamber was located in what prisoners called the "little red house" (known as bunker 1 by the SS), a brick cottage that had been turned into a gassing facility; the windows had been bricked up and its four rooms converted into two insulated rooms, the doors of which said "''Zur Desinfektion''" ("to disinfection"). A second brick cottage, the "little white house" or bunker 2, was converted and operational by June 1942.<ref>{{harvnb|Piper|2000b|pp=134–136}}; also see {{harvnb|Piper|1998c|p=161}}.</ref> When Himmler visited the camp on 17 and 18 July 1942, he was given a demonstration of a selection of Dutch Jews, a mass-murder in a gas chamber in bunker 2, and a tour of the building site of Auschwitz III, the new [[IG Farben]] plant being constructed at [[Monowitz]].<ref>{{harvnb|Pressac|van Pelt|1998|pp=214–215}}; also see {{harvnb|Piper|2000b|p=138}}.</ref> Use of bunkers I and 2 stopped in spring 1943 when the new crematoria were built, although bunker 2 became operational again in May 1944 for the murder of the Hungarian Jews. Bunker I was demolished in 1943 and bunker 2 in November 1944.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=143}}

Plans for crematoria II and III show that both had an oven room {{cvt|30|by|11.24|m|ft}} on the ground floor, and an underground dressing room {{cvt|49.43|by|7.93|m|ft}} and gas chamber {{cvt|30|by|7|m|ft}}. The dressing rooms had wooden benches along the walls and numbered pegs for clothing. Victims would be led from these rooms to a five-yard-long narrow corridor, which in turn led to a space from which the gas chamber door opened. The chambers were white inside, and nozzles were fixed to the ceiling to resemble showerheads.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|pp=165–166}} The daily capacity of the crematoria (how many bodies could be burned in a 24-hour period) was 340 corpses in crematorium I; 1,440 each in crematoria II and III; and 768 each in IV and V.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=159}} By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational, but crematorium I was not used after July 1943. This made the total daily capacity 4,416, although by loading three to five corpses at a time, the ''Sonderkommando'' were able to burn some 8,000 bodies a day. This maximum capacity was rarely needed; the average between 1942 and 1944 was 1,000 bodies burned every day.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=164}}