I’m standing inside one of the surviving toilet rooms at Auschwitz I, where hundreds of prisoners living in a single block had to share a very limited number of sanitary facilities. As the camp expanded, many of the brick prisoner blocks were fitted with lavatories on the ground floor containing around 22 toilets, together with urinals and washing facilities. That sounds substantial until you compare it with the number of people using them. A single block could hold several hundred prisoners, sometimes far more than originally intended, meaning the same small toilet room had to serve an enormous number of people every day. Access was strictly controlled. Prisoners were usually allowed to use the toilets and washing facilities during short periods in the morning and evening, before roll call or after returning from forced labour. They could be hurried through in only a few minutes so that the next group could enter. There was almost no privacy. The toilets were positioned openly beside one another with no individual cubicles separating prisoners. Conditions during the earliest period of Auschwitz were even worse. When the camp first opened in 1940, many blocks had no proper internal sanitary facilities at all. Prisoners relied on provisional outdoor latrines and had to collect water from wells. Running water, toilets and proper washing facilities were gradually installed as the camp developed. Overcrowding meant the sanitary system was constantly under pressure. Prisoners often had very limited opportunities to wash properly, while lice, skin infections, diarrhoea and other illnesses spread quickly through the densely packed accommodation. Some of the ceramic toilets and plumbing still preserved inside Auschwitz I date from 1941 and 1942. More than 80 years later, this room still shows how even something as basic as using the toilet was controlled by the camp routine. Hundreds of people could be living inside one block, all relying on only a few dozen toilets and being given only a short amount of time to use them