In this building, which went into use in late 1943, newly arrived prisoners were registered and subjected to disinfection before being exploited as slave laborers. This is where they were assigned the numbers that were tattooed on their forearms, received their striped camp clothing, and had the hair removed from all over their bodies. Additional selection was sometimes carried out here among Jewish women, as a result of which the pregnant ones were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. In view of the filth and infestation that prevailed in the camp and caused frequent illnesses and epidemics, threatening the functioning of the camp and the health of the SS garrison, the periodic delousing of prisoners and their clothing was also carried out in the "Sauna."
In April, 2001 the building was rendered accessible to visitors. They can learn about the function and history of the object by walking through the rooms in the same order as the victims were forced to do. This building was located in the camp sector that contained the magazines where the property of the mass murder victims was stored, and in the vicinity of the gas chambers and crematoria. For this reason, photographs carried in their luggage by Jewish deportees to Auschwitz, and discovered after the liberation of the camp, have been placed in the last of the rooms through which visitors pass.
The opening of the camp bathhouse building to visitors and the arrangement of its interior were possible thanks to financial assistance for these projects from the governments of the German Federal States. These projects are also supported by sales of the historical study The Architecture of Crime. The "Central Camp Sauna" in Auschwitz II-Birkenau and the album Before They Perished..., which contains all the photographs in the Museum collections from which the pictures in the exhibition were chosen. These titles are available for purchase in English, German, and Polish at all sales outlets on the Museum grounds.
