Karl Fritzsch, acting as the deputy camp commandant of Auschwitz, initiated a series of experiments involving Zyklon B, a pesticide repurposed for use in mass killings. On this day, Fritzsch targeted Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) to ascertain the rapid lethality of the gas. Auschwitz, located in occupied Poland, had been established as a concentration camp to detain political dissenters and later became a significant site for the implementation of the Final Solution.

The use of Zyklon B was not accidental; it was part of a moving strategy that aimed to industrialize mass murder. Fritzsch's experimentation sought to refine the process for efficient execution methods, drawing on the scale and procedures that would later become standard in extermination camps. During these tests, the haphazard nature of how the gas was delivered was documented, shedding light on the calculated cruelty that characterized the National Socialist regime's approach to mass extermination.

The inhumane actions of Fritzsch and his cohorts amplified the brutality of the Holocaust, as the methodology of killing evolved. This experience set a precedent, highlighting the bureaucratic and systematic approach to extermination, which would later be expanded upon in the gas chambers designed specifically for mass killings at Auschwitz. These early experiments underscored the increasing dehumanization of Jewish people and other targeted groups, while the Nazi regime continued to execute its genocidal plans with alarming efficiency.