Explore Log in Sign up

Explore

@ramonfliek.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 1:29 AM

October 8, 1941: Construction of #Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) began in #Brzezinka, about three kilometers from Auschwitz I.

#RememberHistory #USAtoday
@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social

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) died of hypothermia, starvation or exhaustion within a few weeks. Some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I between 7 and 25 October 1941, but by 1 March 1942 only 945 were still registered; they were transferred to Auschwitz II, where most of them had died by May.
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 Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the Oświęcim freight station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, then buried in a nearby meadow. 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. 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.
Photo: The openings through which Zyklon B was poured into the gas chamber of crematoria II are visible in this February 1943 photo, taken by SS Dietrich Kammann. Poles Ludwik Lawin and Tadeusz Kubik, who worked in the camp photography studio, stole a number of Kammann’s negatives and buried them.

Terms of Use Privacy Policy Community Standards Help Get the app

Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-11 02:37:10 EDT