Kanada warehouses, Auschwitz

The Kanada warehouses, also known as Effektenlager or simply Kanada, were storage facilities in the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. The buildings were used to store the stolen belongings of prisoners, mostly Jews who had been murdered in the gas chambers on arrival. The property of prisoners registered in the camp and used as slave labour was kept on deposit.

The warehouses became known as "Kanada" (or "Canada") because the prisoners saw them as the land of plenty. Although the name began as prisoner slang, it was apparently adopted by some of the camp administration. Prisoners who worked there were known as the Aufräumungskommando ("clearing-up commando") or Kanada Kommando. It was viewed as one of the best jobs in Auschwitz, because prisoners could "organize", in camp slang, and procure goods for themselves and other inmates.