After the German and Soviet attack on Poland in 1939, vast swathes of Polish territory, including Warsaw and Krakow, fell under Nazi occupation in an administration which became known as the 'General Government'. The region was not directly incorporated into the Reich but was ruled by a German regime, headed by the brutal and corrupt Governor General Hans Frank. This was indeed the dark heart of Hitler's empire. As the principal 'racial laboratory' of the Third Reich, it was the site of Aktion Reinhard, the largest killing operation of the Holocaust, and of a campaign of terror and ethnic...

The Holocaust - the murder of approximately six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in World War Two - is the gravest crime in recorded history, committed on a human and geographical scale which is almost unimaginable. To try to bridge this gap and better understand the true significance of the Holocaust, as well as its scale and magnitude, millions of people each year now travel to the former camps, ghettos and other settings for the atrocities. "The Holocaust Sites of Europe" offers the first comprehensive guide to these sites, including much practical information as well as...