Auschwitz

In his highly acclaimed bestseller AUSCHWITZ, author and broadcaster Laurence Rees tells the definitive history of the most notorious Nazi institution of them all. We discover how Auschwitz evolved from a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners into the site of the largest mass murder in history - part death camp, part concentration camp, where around a million Jews were killed. ees uses Auschwitz as a window through which to examine the Holocaust in its broader context. He argues that, far from being an aberration, the camp was a uniquely important institution in the Nazi state, one that played a vital role in the 'Final Solution'. USCHWITZ examines the mentality and motivations of the key Nazi decision makers, and perpetrators of appalling crimes speak here for the first time about their actions. Fascinating and disturbing facts have been uncovered - from the operation of a brothel to the corruption that was rife throughout the camp. The book draws on intriguing new documentary material from recently opened Russian archives, which will challenge many previously accepted arguments. uschwitz lay at the hub of a complex system of extermination that spread throughout

Winner of British Book Awards: History Book of the Year 2006

"Thank God that occasionally books of the stature of Laurence Rees's superb Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution are published... Fascinating." -- Andrew Roberts Evening Standard "Excellent" -- Boyd Tonkin The Independent "A key to understanding man's inhumanity to man" -- Ian Thomson The Guardian "Well-written with striking testimonies from bystanders, perpetrators and victims. The interviews with SS men, and sundry European Fascists, are genuinely revealing, and must have been exceptionally difficult to negotiate" -- Michael Burleigh Daily Telegraph "Devastating. Rees's research is impeccable and intrepid. Ultimately he does at the gut level what Hannah Arendt achieved some 40 years ago at the level of philosophy: he forces the reader to shift the Holocaust out of the realm of nightmare or Gothic horror and acknowledge it as something all too human. Scrupulous and honest, this book is utterly without illusions" -- David Von Drehle Washington Post, USA

Laurence Rees is the writer and producer of the major BBC television documentary series World War II: Behind Closed Doors, War of the Century, Horror in the East and Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution'. He won the British Book Award for History Book of the Year in 2006 for his international bestseller Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution'. Rees' career as a writer and filmmaker, focusing on the Nazis and World War II, stretches back nearly 20 years. His body of work has won him several awards, including a BAFTA and a Grierson Award. He was educated at Solihull School and Oxford University and is the former Creative Director of BBC TV History programmes.