Plot

German commanders discover the efficiency of gassing prisoners, and Auschwitz transforms from a small backwater camp for those resisting the Nazi occupation of Poland to a large scale extermination camp for Jews.

Examines the radical increase in violence against all opponents of the Nazi state. In particular, it explores the German army's invasion of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941 and connects this campaign to the first gassing experiments in Auschwitz, Poland, which were aimed at Russian prisoners of war, not Jews.