Birkenau Krematorium V

Krematorium V (officially Badeanstalt für Sonderaktion or “Bathhouse for Special Action”) was unique among the large Birkenau crematoria because its gas chambers and incinerators were located at ground level. Birkenau Krematorium V gas chambers had four rooms, which are just over the low brick wall and beyond.

The building was designed as a rectangular structure with a central disrobing room, leading directly to three gas chambers (each capable of holding ~800–1,000 victims) and five cremation ovens (later expanded or modified in capacity). While the official SS design capacity was 768 bodies per day, historical estimates suggest it processed significantly more during the peak of the Hungarian deportations in 1944.

Krematorium V began operations on April 4, 1943

As you scroll, you see a field reaching to the far corner, and four memorial stones. Just to their left and past the shaded area is where the burning pits for the Krematorium were located.

The problem for the Nazis was not how many people they could gas, but how to dispose of all the corpses. At peak periods such as the Hungarian “Aktion” (May-June 1944), these pits greatly increased disposal capacity. Trenches were dug in the sides to catch the fat run-off, as throwing it back on the flames made them even hotter. Scrolling past the Shaded Area, you can see in the distance the ruins of Krematorium IV, and to its right, The Sauna.

The Sonderkommando Uprising (October 1944)

Crematorium V is historically significant as a site of resistance during the Sonderkommando uprising on October 7, 1944.

Are you out of your mind?! To tell people such a thing? How could I tell people that they were about to be murdered? It was impossible to tell anyone this terrible truth. You have to realize that the system was too sophisticated for us to interfere in any way. The people were doomed to die and we couldn’t do a thing about it. Sonderkommando survivor Leon Cohen

Prisoners in the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners forced to operate the crematoria) revolted after learning they were to be executed. They smuggled explosives into the camp.

While Crematorium IV was destroyed by fire and explosion, the fire spread to Crematorium V. Some Sonderkommando prisoners hid in the chimney or ruins of Crematorium V to escape SS retaliation.

Approximately 450 Sonderkommando prisoners were killed in the uprising. Only a few, including Henryk Tauber and Salmen Gradowski (who left behind poignant diaries), survived or left records.

The SS blew up Crematorium V on January 26, 1945, one day before the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz.

Today, only the concrete foundations and ruins of the ovens remain visible at the site, preserved as part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.