Zyklon B was a pesticide produced by the Degesch company, initially designated exclusively for eradicating insects in residential quarters, storage space, and special disinfection chambers at the camp.
From the end of the summer of 1941, it was also used sporadically to put to death Auschwitz I prisoners and Soviet POWs; from the spring of 1942 it was used regularly to murder Jews in the Birkenau gas chambers.
Zyklon B took the form of granules of diatomaceous earth saturated with hydrogen cyanide, which was released at an appropriately high temperature (approx. 27 degrees C) and turned into a gaseous form.
Its application produced so-called internal asphyxiation of the victims by blocking the exchange of oxygen in the red corpuscles and impeding cellular respiration.
📖 'Auschwitz. From A to Z. An Illustrated history' in over 300 short entries we explain some of the most important aspects of the history of the German Nazi Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.
9-10 November 1938 | November Pogrom (known also as Kristallnacht), a pogrom against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany. Hundreds killed & died by suicide, 30,000 men arrested, over 1,000 synagogues burnt, over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristalln…
The name Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night") comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.
In an article on the evening of 11 November, Joseph Goebbels ascribed the events to the "healthy instincts" of the German people: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race."
#Auschwitz was the only German Nazi concentration camp where - from some point - the camp numbers were tattooed, first on chests and later on forearms of prisoners. 1/4
In fall of 1941 the camp administration started tattooing Soviet POWs. Initially the number was on the left side of the chest. Polish prisoners transferred to Birkenau from Auschwitz I in March 1942 were tattooed the same way, as well as Jews arriving in the first transports. 2/4
From the spring of 1942 the camp authorities ordered that incoming prisoners be tattooed on the left forearm. Jewish men arriving in new transports were marked in this way, together with Jewish women already incarcerated in the camp. 3/4
14 August 1941 | Saint ft. Maximilian #Kolbe OFM was killed with a phenol injection inside a starvation cell of Block 11 of the German #Auschwitz I camp. On 29 July 1941 he offered his life to save a person selected for starvation death after an escape of a prisoner.
The death certificate issued by the SS administration confirming the death of Father Maximilian Kolbe in #Auschwitz on 14 August 1941. The official cause of death given is "Myocardinsuffizienz": myocardial insufficiency.
Today we recommend our online lesson dedicated to the fate of Catholic priests & clerics, nuns and clergy of other Christian churches who were prisoners of Auschwitz: lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_18_duchowie…
The research of historians of @AuschwitzMuseum indicates that the official order of Heinrich Himmler to establish #Auschwitz concentration camp was given at least by the first days of April 1940 - not on April 27, 1940, as it was previously stated. #twitterstorians
The documents show that already on April 15, 1940, a binding pledge was made to the camp in Auschwitz in the form of the first tranche of 2,000,000 RM, assigned to cover the costs of adapting the former barracks buildings.
This means that a cursory review of the number of the available buildings and their condition must have been compiled earlier, in order to make a preliminary estimate of the cost of the required construction work. It would not be possible without the official order.
26/27 April 1943 | Three Poles escaped #Auschwitz: Edward Ciesielski (12969), Witold Pilecki (4859) & Jan Redzej (5430). #Pilecki was one of the co-founders of military resistance inside the camp. After the escape, he wrote an elaborate report about German crimes in Auschwitz.
Telegrams sent by the camp Gestapo (Politische Abteilung - Political Department) in #Auschwitz informing about the escape. One mentions "Thomas Serafinski" (false identity of Witold Pilecki) and "Johann Retko" (Jan Redzej). The other, Edward Ciesielski.
This is how Witold Pilecki described his escape in his report.
16 April 1947 | SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of the German #Auschwitz camp was hanged after he was sentenced to death by the Supreme National Tribunal in Warsaw.
Rudolf Höss was born in Baden-Baden on 25 November 1901. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and the SS in 1934. He started his career in Dachau in December 1934, then he worked in KL Sachsenhausen. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_H%… 2/9
In May 1940 Rudolf Höss was appointed by Heinrich Himmler as the commandant of a new concentration camp created in occupied Polish territory annexed to the Third Reich - #Auschwitz. 3/9