Bombing
The Auschwitz II-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria never became targets for Allied bombing, despite reports about their existence forwarded by the Polish resistance movement. Instead, American bombers carried out several strikes against the IG Farben petrochemical installations located at the distance of seven kilometers from Auschwitz. The factory came under attack for the first time in May 1943. From the spring of 1944, Auschwitz camps came within range of American bombers flying out of bases in Italy. Reconnaissance aircraft, the task of which was to photograph the chemical plants, performed many photographs on which Birkenau gas chambers are, among others, visible. The first larger raid on the plant came only in August 1944, when 127 American bombers type B‑17 dropped 1,336 bombs. This attack and the following ones seriously damaged the plant and made it impossible to resume production on any significant scale before the arrival of Red Army units in January 1945. Some of the bombs detonated far from the plant, including the grounds of Auschwitz complex camps, killing both the prisoners and SS men.