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Their Darkest Hour

People Tested to the Extreme in WWII

How could Nazi killers shoot Jewish women and children at close range? Why did Japanese soldiers rape and murder on such a horrendous scale? How was it possible to endure the torment of a Nazi death camp?

Award-winning documentary maker and historian Laurence Rees has spent decades wrestling with such questions in the course of filming hundreds of interviews with people tested to the extreme during World War II. He has come face-to-face with rapists, mass murderers, even cannibals, but he has also met courageous individuals who are an inspiration to us all.

In Their Darkest Hour he presents 35 of his most electrifying encounters.

'A remarkably powerful collection' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph

'An incredible, well-written, must-read book' Glasgow Evening Times

'A lasting contribution to our understanding of the Second World War and a powerful insight into the behaviour of human beings in crisis' Independent

A remarkably powerful collection

Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph

About Laurence Rees

Laurence Rees is the author of The Holocaust: A New History, a Sunday Times bestseller that was described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘the finest single volume on the Holocaust ever written’, by the Times as an ‘exemplary account of how the greatest crime in modern history came about’ and by the Mail on Sunday as ‘groundbreaking.’


A former Head of BBC TV History programmes, he has written nine books focusing on the Nazis and the Second World War. Many of them, including The Nazis: A Warning from History, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, World War II: Behind Closed Doors and The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, were also documentary TV series, which he wrote and produced.


Educated at Oxford University, for several years he was a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sheffield and the Open University.


His many awards include a British Book award, a BAFTA, a George Foster Peabody award, a Broadcasting Press Guild award, a Grierson award, a Broadcast award, two International Documentary awards and two Emmys.
Details
  • Imprint: Ebury Digital
  • ISBN: 9781448116287
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Price: £6.99
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