From 1942 Jews were being transported to Auschwitz from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys. The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from May to July 1944, during the Holocaust in Hungary. A rail spur leading to crematoria II and III in Auschwitz II was completed that May, and a new ramp was built between sectors BI and BII to deliver the victims closer to the gas chambers (images top right). On 29 April the first 1,800 Jews from Hungary arrived at the camp. From 14 May until early July 1944, 437,000 Hungarian Jews, half the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period. The crematoria had to be overhauled. Crematoria II and III were given new elevators leading from the stoves to the gas chambers, new grates were fitted, and several of the dressing rooms and gas chambers were painted. Cremation pits were dug behind crematorium V. The incoming volume was so great that the "Sonderkommando" resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.