Thomas Cussans – författare

The Holocaust is an attempt to explain the inexplicable – the systematic murder of millions of Europe's Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War. It includes facsimile documents that have been carefully selected to remind readers that the horrifying statistics represent not numbers but people. This illustrated volume describes Jewish life before the spread of Nazism in Europe and Nazi ideologies. The author discusses the mass murder, the death camps such as Auschwitz, the perpetrators, the witnesses, the escapees, the refugee havens and the 10,000 Kindertransport youngsters who were given safe haven in Britain. The Holocaust records stories of resistance and acts of heroism, and tells us of the survivors and those who risked their lives to save the Jews. Finally, it describes the liberation of the camps, the resettlement of the Jews and how the events are remembered now. Published in partnership with the Mémorial de la Shoah, which contains the biggest collection of documents on the subject in Europe and is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and educating future generations.

Approximately 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. No one will ever know the exact figure. Of those, some six million were Jewish, including one million children. The remainder comprised numerous ethnic and social groups deemed the Untermenschen, the subhuman species that, according to the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and the ruling Nazis, were not fit to live.When the implementation of the Final Solution - Reinhard Heydrich's plan to exterminate the remaining Jewish population in Nazi occupied Europe - began in 1942, it was but the height of a brutally executed, systematic plan to rid the world of these "unwanted" peoples. But how did the Holocaust begin? How did it develop? And who was responsible?The Holocaust explores the background to this most barbaric of crimes and contains several reproductions of moving and important documents, including a child's drawing from the Warsaw Ghetto, the plans of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, and the Wannsee Protocol, the blueprint for the Holocaust itself.There are 15 documents reproduced on the page, including:Letter describing Kristallnacht and a diary extract about life in the ghettoList of Jews to be transported, including place of departure and destinationDrawings by a child incarcerated at Theresienstadt concentration camp