Painted fiberglass casting of the façade of a brick and iron, double-muffle crematorium oven. The ovens’ outer surface is primarily brick, laid in a Flemish bond pattern, in which each row consists of alternating stretchers (long sides) and headers (short sides) with the headers centered over the stretchers in the rows above and below. The front exterior edges are covered by black iron angles with a centered, vertical band of iron and three horizontal bands secured by rivets and bolts framing the brickwork. At the center of each side, bolted between the top two horizontal bands and the center vertical band, is a large square, black plate. Each plate holds a corpse-loading door with an arched top and an embossed number in the center. The doors are attached to the plate with a barrel hinge on the outside and latched shut by hinged levers. Bolted to the bottom center of the doors are square plates that hold a top hinged, cover with an escutcheon plate depicting a manufacturer’s mark on the front. Similar rectangular covers, used for airflow control, are located on the brick surface next to the large, door hinges. The doors swing open, are backed by imitation cement, and have rectangular holes in the bottom center opposite the hinged covers. Below the arched doors, bolted between the lowest horizontal band and bottom iron angle edge are small, rectangular ash removal doors with a similar hinge and escutcheon plate. The entire casting is painted in various shades of red, brown, black, and gray to resemble brick, metal, and concrete.
No restrictions on access
No restrictions on use
after 1989 August 15-before 1991 March 18
The oven casting was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991.
overall: Height: 62.500 inches (158.75 cm) | Width: 99.500 inches (252.73 cm) | Depth: 16.250 inches (41.275 cm)
Painted fiberglass casting of a brick and iron, double-muffle crematorium oven at Mauthausen concentration camp in German-occupied Austria, commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for installation in the museum’s permanent exhibition. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and established a concentration camp roughly three miles from the town of Mauthausen the following August. It originally functioned as a forced-labor camp with a granite quarry. Additionally, in 1941, the camp began to carry out mass killings using gas and several other methods. The systematic killings necessitated the construction of a crematorium facility at the camp, and the dehumanization of prisoners’ deaths was compounded by the high-volume and industrialized body disposal methods. The prisoners loading the ovens were ordered to stack the bodies in arrangements that allowed them to burn as efficiently and quickly as possible. In a double-muffle oven, a single source of fire fueled two incineration chambers through gaps in the dividing wall. The rear of the furnaces had coke-fired hearths, and the sides had forced air vents with electric motors. This type of oven was more efficient, but necessitated mixing of ashes, which was illegal under German law. The ashes were removed from the small doors at the bottom of the front side, and six small rectangular hinged flaps on the sides and front functioned as secondary air intakes, helping to regulate and adjust airflow. The oven and cremation tools at Mauthausen—and most of those used in crematoriums throughout Europe at the time—were supplied by the German-based engineering and manufacturing company, J.A. Topf & Sons. The metal components of Mauthausen’s furnace—including the stretcher—were shipped to Mauthausen at the end of September 1942. The last mass murder in the Mauthausen gas chamber occurred on April 28, 1945. The SS abandoned the camp on May 3 and US troops arrived within days.
Casting of a double-muffle oven from the crematorium at Mauthausen concentration camp