Polish camps where, in 1940, the Nazis had built a quarantine camp that housed close to ten thousand Polish prisoners of war. In 1941, Himmler, who was the head of the SS, decided to en large the premises at Auschwitz so that it could hold up to 30,000 prisoners. In the neighboring area of Birkenau, he also created a camp far 100,000 prisoners of war. By the 16th of September, 1941, Auschwitz was equipped with three cremation bi-muffle ovens w ith coke bumers, which were installed under the supervision of the ch ief engineer of the Topf Company , Kurt Prüfer. A devastating typhoid epidemic was the reason for the rush to accelerate a complex machinery for massive extermination. The first of these occurred at the Auschwitz facilities (December, 1941). This consisted of exterminating two hundred and fifty patients with incurable typhoid and six hundred Soviet prisoners, half of which were considered communist fanatics. In a closed space these prisoners were exposed to the poisonous vapors of Zyk lon-B. With the warmth of their naked bodies, th e victims generated enough heat so that the hydrocyanic acid absorbed in the silica would evaporate and reach lethal concentration levels. The cadavers, whose hair and teeth had been ripped out , were taken out after the chamber was ventilated and dragged to the incineration area, where they were bumed . In 1944, at the height of the massacre of war criminals (who were mostly Polish Jews), the
perfecting of the incineration systems and the better control of hydrocyanic acid doses allowed for the establishment of a cycle of poisonous vapor explosions which lasted from sixty to ninety minutes. Five hundred grams of Zyklon-B were sufficient. In this way, death came quickly to the prisoners who were placed in a chamber that measured on ly fifty square meters . The population, composed of children, women, and the elderly, were not considered material for hard labor. This method made it possible to cremate as many as one thousand bodies a day.
Zyklon-B was crealed in lhe firsl decades of lhe cen lury by lhe German eompany Degeseh. This gas, whi eh is absorbed in lhe porous surfaee of siliea granul es, evaporales al 27 degrees eenli grade, and in lhe presenee of minule quamilies of humidily. The gas is made up of hydroeyan ie liquid acid (HCN), a highly loxie subslance whose lelha l dose is a minimum of 60mg and, wilh 4% lO 10% of eh loropicrin or nilrale-ehloroform (C I 3CN02), il beeomes a peslicide lhal is a slrong irrilanl lO lhe digeslive lracl and sk in . When inhaled, Zyklon-B is loxic and eonlains a lachrymalory subsla nee. ch loroform elhy l (C3H502C I).