The Camp Terror System: Block 11 Basement Containing Cells
Block 11 was strictly isolated from the rest of the camp. Here were detainment, starvation, suffocation, and stand-up cells. For a painting that brings this to life see [link].
"Trials of [the poison gas, hydrogen cyanide] for killing people were begun in the summer of 1941, in the basement of Block 11 (at the time number 13). An unknown number of Soviet POWs were killed in one of the windowless basement chambers. Here is Broad's recollection of the event: 'One day corpses of Russian POWs were dragged out of a dark cell. As they lay in the yard, they looked strangely bloated and had a bluish tinge, though they were relatively fresh. Several older prisoners who had been through World War I remembered seeing corpses like that. Suddenly they understood... gas!...' "*
*Piper, F. (2000). Mass Murder. Auschwitz 1940-1945. Oswiecim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. PP.117-118.