Auschwitz One
Auschwitz One was built and supervised by Heinrich Himmler. It started at 300 Jews at its center and then went on to 17000 Jewish and Polish residents there. The camp had a few hundred guards. The camp was one of six major death camps. The camp included sixteen one-story buildings and a main central building. Block 11 was the prison barrack of all the blocks. The wall between Block 10 and Block 11 was known as the "Black Wall" because anyone to be executed was executed there; hence the name, "Black Wall". On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 Polish inmates by gathering them in the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B, a highly lethal cyanide-based pesticide. After that a gas chamber and crematorium was built. The camp was liberated last of the three on January 27, 1945.