A building in Auschwitz I that, in various periods, housed on the ground floor and first floor: penal company prisoners, so‑called police prisoners, new arrivals in the camp undergoing so‑called entry quarantine, and prisoners awaiting release undergoing. From 1943, the summary court held sessions in a ground‑floor room. Men and women prisoners suspected of being active in the resistance movement, contact with civilians, or attempting to escape were held in the basement. Also placed in the cells were prisoners sentenced to death by starvation in reprisal for the escape of a fellow prisoner. In the cellars of the block, at the beginning of September 1941, the SS carried out the first test using Zyklon B for mass murder. The victims of this crime were Soviet POWs and sick Polish prisoners selected from the camp hospital. In the courtyard of block 11, executions were held by shooting (Death Wall) as well as by hanging. Punishment by the post was also administered in the block and its courtyard.

(Mini dictionary of terms from the history of Auschwitz)