I was reading about Anne Frank and learned that while in Auschwitz, she became infected with scabies and was moved to an infirmary. Isn't a place to care for the sick contradictory to Auschwitzs' practice of immediately gassing people who were unfit for work? I'd be interested in any information anyone has about infirmaries in Auschwitz or any other Nazi extermination camp.
It is important to also note that Auschwitz I, a complex of one and two level barracks buildings was initially used as an army site by the Austrians during Austro-Hungarian rule and then later by the Polish army.
It was not initially an extermination camp and was used as early as 1940 to house Polish political prisoners. As was mentioned, it was a work camp.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau was built later and is a few kilometers away from the site of Birkenau at a railroad junction, the famous tracks terminating at a siding through the iconic gate.
I recommend you check out 'People in Auschwitz' by Hermann Langbein. There is a chapter titled 'The Inmate Infirmary' (pp. 203-232) that describes the function, history and people who were treated as well as worked in the infirmary.
Even when large scale extermination was occurring, Auschwitz still maintained the function of providing slave labor to nearby factories. Arriving transports were subject to selection, where the able-bodied were not sent for extermination immediately.
The infirmary was staffed by prisoners themselves, and there are accounts about their ambivalent position working there. They avoided hard labor, were considered to be in a high position in camp society but were subjected to the horrors of extreme malnutrition, infectious disease and cruelty of camp staff. As a work camp, one of the primary functions of the infirmary was to avoid further spread of infectious diseases such as the above mentioned scabies, to more serious diseases such as dysentery and tuberculosis.
There are accounts of infirmary staff attempting to use their position to 'shield' certain patients from extermination, as well as SS staff devising methods to combat this, such as a "method devised by the camp physician Heinz Thilo to deprive medical personnel of the chance to hide someone from the selections" where "from time to time he conducted reverse selections - that is, he selected those who were to be exempted from being transported to the gas chambers" for extermination (pp. 209).
Frankly, it can be hard to try and apply our own modern logical considerations to the functioning of camp life and society and many seemingly contradictory situations occurred in the death camps where so many human lives were valueless and decisions regarding life and death arbitrary.