From the beginning of existence of the Auschwitz concentration camp bodies of its murdered prisoners were burned. In the first weeks, bodies were taken to be burned in a cemetery crematorium in Gliwice. The first crematorium in Auschwitz was launched in August 1940 as a two-chamber incinerator furnace was supplied by the Germany company Topf und Söhne from Erfurt. Several Polish prisoners were employed to operate it, including, Wacław Lipka, Mieczysław Morawa and Józef Ilczuk.

The prisoners employed in this crematorium were not initially part of a special work squad, i.e. a Sonderkommando. Instead in documentation they were referred to as Krematorium Heizer, i.e. crematorium stokers. They were quartered in the camp in a normal prisoner blocks, initially Block 4 and later Block 15. They were not isolated from the other prisoners and were free to move within the camp. They also had the same few rights as other political prisoners, e.g. they could keep in touch with their families through censored postal correspondence.