In 'Auschwitz: a new history', documentarian Laurence Rees excavates a wealth of information and offers a new perspective in his shocking portrait of this most infamous death camp. Informed by more than a hundred original interviews with survivors and Nazi perpetrators, Rees's study exposes the inner workings of the camp in unprecedented detail -- from the continually refined techniques of mass murder to the shrewd psychological manipulations of inmates, and from the unimaginable living conditions to the bizarre microcosms that emerged, such as the brothel and the dining hall, where the line between guard and prisoner became surprisingly blurred. -- dust jacket