Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution"

Auschwitz has a unique place in history. It is where the largest mass murder ever recorded occurred. Yet it is hard to grasp how and why such a chilling place existed.

Now the untold story of Auschwitz is to be revealed in a definitive BBC series to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camp in January 2005.

Auschwitz: The Nazis & the "Final Solution" offers a unique perspective on the camp in which more than one million people were ruthlessly murdered.

The series follows the trail of evil from the origins of Auschwitz as a place to hold Polish political prisoners, through the Nazi solution for what they called 'the Jewish problem' to the development of the camp as a mechanised factory for mass murder.

It interweaves new testimony from camp survivors and members of the SS with archive footage and drama reconstructions of some of the key decision-making moments.

And for the first time on television, the buildings that made up Auschwitz-Birkenau are recreated from the original blueprints, using photo-real graphics.

The series is the result of three years of in-depth research, drawing on the close involvement of world experts on the period, including Professors Sir Ian Kershaw and David Cesarani.

It is based on nearly 100 interviews with survivors and perpetrators, many of whom are speaking in detail for the first time.

Sensitively shot drama sequences, filmed on location using German and Polish actors, bring recently discovered documents to life on screen, whilst specially commissioned computer images give a historically accurate view of Auschwitz-Birkenau at all its many stages.

The computer-animated images are based on plans from the Auschwitz construction offices which were captured after the war, eye-witness testimony and aerial photos, and include the undressing room, the gas chamber and the oven room of one of the crematorium complexes, as well as illustrations of Himmler's vision for a new Germanised town of Auschwitz (Source: BBC)