The camp authorities designated Blocks 19,
20, 21 and 28 as the "camp infirmary" for sick prisoners.
Prisoners often referred to them as (waiting rooms for the
crematoria.( The lack of basic medicines and medical care caused many
deaths. In mid-1941, SS physicians began conducting selections among
the patients. They chose the most enfeebled prisoners or those who
did not seem likely to recover their health quickly, and killed them
by lethal injection or in the gas
chambers.
Throughout the period when the
"infirmary" was in operation, SS physicians carried out
various types of medical and
pharmacological experiments that usually led to the death of
prisoners or left them permanently injured.
Similar "hospitals" were located in
other parts of Auschwitz concentration camp.