Biographies | Bill Gluck

II. Auschwitz & Muhldorf

That was my introduction to the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, where I remained for a few weeks. I quickly learned which buildings were the gas chambers and the crematoria. The very tall chimneys were spewing foul smelling smoke, day and night, night and day, without end. When I first inquired about those chimneys, I was told that they were part of the crematorium.

"What's a crematorium?" I asked.

"That's where your parents were gassed and burned," came the answer. I was stunned.

I. Satu Mare, Romania

II. Auschwitz & Muhldorf

IV. Life as a Refugee

V. Sailing to Canada

VI. Becoming Canadian

Crematorium / crematoria
Building at concentration camps that housed the ovens that burned murdered inmates.

Gas chamber
Sealed rooms in extermination camps and some concentration camps, often masked to look like shower or delousing facilities. Prisoners were crowded into the chambers where poison gas or carbon monoxide was released. Zyklon B was used at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Most of the other killing centres used carbon monoxide. After gassing victims' bodies were cremated or buried in mass graves.