Accompanying a huge television event - the definitive television history of the most evil place in the history of the world, produced by BAFTA award-winning producer Laurence Rees, Auschwitz is published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

All of us need to understand how Auschwitz was possible. We need to penetrate the mentalities of the perpetrators and understand why more than a million people were murdered in this one place. And there has never been a more appropriate time to try...

Over the last ten years there has been an outpouring of scholarly research on everything from the camp's hospitals to escapes, from the original plans for the camp to the personnel files of the SS who worked there. What this new research on Auschwitz leads to is a fundamental shift in how we look at the camp - no longer an 'aberration' within the Nazi State but the logical conclusion of it.

It's a story that isn't just about Germany but directly touches every country in Europe that endured Nazi occupation. Disturbing new research helps us answer the question - why did some countries give up their Jews to Auschwitz relatively easily whilst others - like Denmark - resisted? And the story is of huge relevance to the Allies. Why, for example, once the British and Americans knew of the existence of Auschwitz was little done to prevent the killing?

From the Polish Priest who volunteered to be a hostage and was starved to death (and who has recently been made a Saint) to SS Doctors like Josef Mengele who conducted human experiments: from the Sonderkommandos - the prisoners who worked in the gas chambers - to the women forced to endure some of the most horrific conditions in the camp in order to survive; the drama and variety of the human stories is unique.

Auschwitz includes interviews with former members of the Nazi party and victims of the regime and trial testimony of those who worked in the camp and will tell the story of the greatest act of mass murder in history.

Accompanying a huge television event Auschwitz is published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

Laurence Rees, History, World War two