Selections of Prisoners Registered in the Auschwitz Camp Complex

Daily life for prisoners in the Auschwitz camp complex was characterized by deliberate starvation; diseases and epidemics; and murderous labor conditions. In addition, camp authorities randomly punished and physically abused prisoners.

At Auschwitz, registered prisoners unable to work faced the threat of murder by the SS. SS physicians conducted regular, cursory examinations of registered prisoners. These examinations were called “selections.” During selection, SS doctors identified ill and weak prisoners whom they believed could no longer work. These prisoners were then murdered. SS doctors regularly performed selections throughout the Auschwitz camp complex.

Selections of registered prisoners at Auschwitz were different from the selections of Jews upon their arrival in the camp.

Who Were the Registered Prisoners at Auschwitz?

Auschwitz was a Nazi camp that functioned as both a concentration camp and a killing center. The Nazis deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex. Of these, about 1.1 million were murdered. Most of those killed at Auschwitz were Jews who were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival.

Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, about 400,000 were registered as prisoners.1Footnote 11 Among these prisoners were:

• Jews;
• Polish political prisoners;
• Roma;
• Soviet prisoners of war;
• Jehovah’s Witnesses; and
• prisoners categorized as “asocials,” “professional criminals,” and “homosexuals.”

The First Selections of Registered Prisoners at Auschwitz: Aktion 14f13 (July 1941)

The first selections of registered prisoners in Auschwitz took place in July 1941. These selections were part of a secret killing operation targeting concentration camp prisoners. This program was called Aktion 14f13 (Operation 14f13). As part of Aktion 14f13, the Nazis selected thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps to be murdered. These murders were carried out under the auspices of Operation T4. Operation T4 was the Nazi program to murder Germans with disabilities living in institutional care facilities. As part of the T4 program, the Nazis established killing facilities where they murdered these patients with poisonous gas. After Operation T4 ended, Aktion 14f13 used some T4 killing facilities to murder camp prisoners.

On July 28, 1941, T4 doctors came to Auschwitz. They selected about 575 prisoners who were ill, exhausted, or weak. These prisoners were then murdered in the gas chamber at the Sonnenstein killing center. Over the next two weeks, Auschwitz authorities issued falsified death certificates for the murdered prisoners. These killings took place before the Nazis began the mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz using poisonous gas. 

Selection and Murder of Registered Prisoners at Auschwitz

In May 1942, the SS began to use gas chambers to murder larger groups of registered prisoners following selections. When the number of prisoners was smaller, the SS still used phenol injections.

Selections took place across the Auschwitz camp complex in camp hospitals, showers, and during roll call. In some cases, prisoners were further humiliated and dehumanized during the selections. They were forced to remove all of their clothing and stand or run naked in front of the SS physicians.

Although the chances of evading selection were low, some prisoners survived one or several selections by hiding, either through their own efforts or with the assistance of fellow prisoners. Other prisoners temporarily hid their medical conditions, sometimes with the help of prisoner functionaries, to try to convince the SS physicians that they did not meet the selection criteria for the gas chambers.

From the summer of 1941 until mid-1943, selections at Auschwitz targeted registered prisoners of all nationalities or categories. Beginning in mid-1943, selections in the camp were limited to Jewish prisoners.