The undressing room and the gas chamber were covered first with a concrete slab then with a layer of soil sown with grass. There were four small chimneys, the openings through which the gas was thrown in that rose above the gas chamber. Allied reconnaissance planes gained the military ability to overfly the Auschwitz area in mid-1944. The nearby IG Farben plant produced synthetic rubber and oil, and was of military interest for that reason, but several photographs were also taken of the Birkenau camp. On this photograph, crematorium II is in the rectangle at middle-right, and crematorium III is at the lower right.
North is to the bottom.
At bottom, the crematorium chimney casts a long shadow. Ground View Below is a ground view of the same crematorium, looking north from its south. On the right is the crematorium building with its chimney visible. Jean-Claude Pressac places the date of this photograph between February 9 and 11, 1943. The building is still being constructed and will not be completed until late March 1943.