The purpose of the Verbrennungskommando was to remove evidence of the citywide campaign of mass murder that took place during the Uprising,[2] by collecting corpses into large piles and burning them in open-air pyres on Elektoralna and Chłodna Streets among others.

"[4] Most of the atrocities were committed by troops under the command of SS men Oskar Dirlewanger,[5] Heinrich Reinefarth,[6] and Bronislav Kaminski.

Tadeusz Klimaszewski,[8] a prisoner who survived the cremation commando, and later wrote a memoir about the experience called Verbrennungskommando Warschau (published in 1959 in Warsaw), described his first day of corpse disposal at the Franaszek Factory in the following way:As far as one could see, the courtyard square was filled with the dead bodies.

They were lying in the full sun, some piled up in the centre, others strewn next to each other, or propped individually along the edges with hands reaching toward the brick wall as if they had tried to save themselves.

[citation needed] After the war, most of the ashes dumped into bomb holes and ditches by the cremation commando were exhumed in 1947 and buried in Warsaw cemeteries.