Crematorium I functioned from August 15, 1940 to July 1943. The
largest room in this building was designed as a morgue. In the
autumn of 1941, it was adapted as the first provisional gas chamber.
In it, the SS used
Zyklon B to kill thousands of newly arrived Jews, as well as several groups
of Soviet POWs.
Prisoners selected from the infirmary as unlikely to return to
work soon were killed in the gas chamber. Poles sentenced to death
by the German summary court were shot here.
After the establishment in Auschwitz II-Birkenau of two more provisional
gas chambers, the so-called Bunker 1 and Bunker 2 (in the spring and summer of 1942), the camp authorities transferred
the operation for the mass murder of the Jews there and gradually
withdrew the first gas chamber from use.
After the completion in Auschwitz II-Birkenau of four crematoria
with gas chambers, the burning of corpses in Crematorium I was
halted in July 1943. The building was next utilized for storage,
and then as an air-raid shelter for the SS. The incinerators,
chimney, and some walls were dismantled and the holes in the roof,
through which the SS men had poured Zyklon B, were sealed.
After the war, the Museum carried out a partial reconstruction. The chimney and two incinerators were rebuilt using original components, as were several of the openings in the gas chamber roof.
