How the Holocaust Began
Say the word ‘Holocaust’ and for most of us, the image that comes to mind is of death camps like Auschwitz; the enduring symbols of a highly organised machine of industrialised genocide. But few of us realise that the death camps were just the final act of the Holocaust. This film tells the story of what went before.

It is the story of the first defining act of the greatest crime in history, a holocaust of bullets that preceded the holocaust of gas. Millions of victims - men, women and children – were shot and buried in thousands of trenches and ditches in fields and forests across eastern Europe; often unrecorded and uncounted.

Uncovering this story is historian James Bulgin. James created the Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum; now he examines a chapter of the Holocaust that has been left largely unexplored for more than 80 years.

James meets image analysts and forensic experts as well as relatives and eye witnesses to piece together what happened to the lost victims of the Holocaust, identifying forgotten graves and revealing the mass shootings, collaboration and experimentation that led to the Final Solution.

How the Holocaust Began (1x60) was commissioned by Simon Young, Head of History, for BBC Two and iPlayer and is produced by Caravan Media. It is written, produced and directed by Nic Young, the executive producer is Dinah Lord, the producer director is Ben Holgate and the film editor is Julie Buckland.