'Major' holocaust history from Viking

Viking is publishing what it describes as the first authoritative and accessible account of the holocaust in over three decades, to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day 2017 and the 75th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference. 

The Holocaust by historian Laurence Rees will be published on 26th January 2017, featuring 25 years’ worth of unpublished eyewitness testimony.

Rees, former head of Head of BBC TV History programmes and the author of Auschwitz, has spent 25 years meeting survivors and perpetrators of the Third Reich and the holocaust. Now, in his "magnum opus", he will combines this testimony - the majority of it never published before - with the latest academic research to create what is planned as "an intensely compelling account of humanity’s lowest point".

Publication will be supported by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Daniel Crewe, publisher at Viking, said: “Words often fail when it comes to this subject, which makes Laurence’s landmark work all the more remarkable.”

Rees said: “The holocaust is the most infamous crime in the history of the world and we need to understand how this obscenity was possible. This book, drawing not only on fresh eyewitness testimony, but also on recent scholarship and documents of the time, is my attempt to do just that.”