Gas chamber

 barracks, massacre

The gas chamber in Mauthausen was in the basement of the camp prison near the crematorium and execution room. Construction started in autumn 1941 and the first gassings took place in March 1942.

According to Hagen Regional Court, at least 3,455 people were gassed with Zyklon B in the Mauthausen gas chamber between March 1942 and the liberation of the camp.

As late as 28 April 1945, some 33 Austrian, five Polish, four Croatian and one Austrian inmate with British nationality were gassed. On the next day the SS dismantled the gas chamber installation.

The tiled gas chamber, disguised to look like a shower (3.87 ? 3.57 metres) had two hermetically sealed doors with peepholes. On the ceiling was a working shower system with 16 nozzles. There was also a radiator, lighting, electric ventilation (in the ceiling) and a length of pipe with a 0.5-cm-wide and 80-cm-long slit, invisible to the victims, on the wall side. The pipe was connected to the gas conduit in a room next to the gas chamber.

The lidded sheet metal gas conduit was attached to the wall on the other side of the gas chamber. Before the gassing a brick was heated in one of the crematorium ovens. Then the cans of Zyklon B were ordered from the pharmacy and brought to the leader of the gassing squad in the room next to the gas chamber, either by the pharmacist Erich Wasicky or the kapo of the pharmacy commando.

The hot brick was placed on the floor of the gas conduit and an SS man wearing a gas mask poured the Zyklon B onto it. Then the lid was placed on the canister and fastened with two butterfly nuts. The rising heat from the brick caused the gas to be rapidly released.

Zyklon B was supplied to Mauthausen, among others, by Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung, Frankfurt), Heerdt-Lingler (Frankfurt) and Aktiengesellschaft für Verarbeitung von Kalilaugen (Kolin).

The gassings were commanded by the head of the crematorium, SS-Hauptscharführer Martin Roth. Dr Eduard Krebsbach and the pharmacist Erich Wasicky are also said to have operated the gas conduit.

Before every gassing, the inmates were examined by members of the SS to find out whether they had any gold teeth. If so, they were marked with a cross on their chest or back.

After the victims had been led to the “shower” and the door closed behind them, the gas conduit was opened. After 15 or 20 minutes, the head of the unit, usually SS-Hauptscharführer Martin Roth, looked through the peephole to check that all the inmates were dead. Then the fan was switched on and the gas extracted from the gas chamber through a chimney.

“"The victims were told that they were being taken for a bath or for delousing. I don’t know whether they knew the fate that awaited them, but I believe at least that camp inmates had an idea of what was going to happen to them, even if they hoped that they would be spared this fate. These are speculations on my part, however. Once the gas had been turned on and the victims killed, Roth switched on a fan for a time to extract the gas from the gas chamber. This took quite a while - it could have been one to two hours. Then the door connecting the gas chamber to the execution room was opened by Roth himself or by one of us inmates at his command and the corpses transported to the cold store. We then had to clean and disinfect the gas chamber on Roth’s orders. If the corpses had been left for some time in the gas chamber, it was extremely difficult to remove them because they were often stiff and completely intermingled. For this reason he sometimes summoned old inmates to help clear the gas chamber. When not being used or prepared for use, the gas chamber was always kept locked."”
Wilhelm Ornstein, former inmate and member of the crematorium commando in Mauthausen (AMM V/3/30)