Variations / Mauthausen
Each showerhead was different. Different markings, different patterns, different tools were used to make the puncture marks in the metal. In one, the holes are so small it is clear that water was never intended to come out. An anthropologist may see the showerheads at Mauthausen as evidence of the prisoners’ individuality and uniqueness. Prisoners built the camp, Mauthausen, in Austria. They may have made the showerheads--a repetitive act without a machine--leaving subtle but noticeable variations in every face.
The gas Cyclon-B never came out of the showerheads. Water came out only after the corpses were removed to wet down the floor for mopping. Cyclon-B came in through a small hole in the wall, stored in a long metal tube that released the gas upon heating it. It took at least twenty minutes for prisoners to die from the gas and an hour before the doors were opened and the room considered gas free. It was called disinfection.