When the BBC do something well, they do it very well indeed.

Such is certainly true of the documentary, How the Holocaust Began, aired on BBC 2 on Monday 23rd January, one of several BBC Holocaust-themed programmes to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Unusually, infamous locations such as Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen are never mentioned by name.

Chaotic and spontaneous

Instead, historian and Holocaust specialist at the Imperial War Museum, James Bulgin steps further back in time – albeit just by half a year. We’re told that, remarkably, as late as 1940, Nazi Germany had no masterplan of Jewish extermination. On the contrary, the origins of the Holocaust were chaotic and spontaneous.

Hitler’s two principal enemies were Communists and Jews. As his armed forces made inroads into Soviet Russia in the summer of 1941, there were no specific orders to slaughter Jews; initially, armed units took their own initiative to round up and kill. Only later were direct orders given to kill Jews wherever they were to be found.

Active participation

Throughout Latvia, Lithuania and (Western) Ukraine, in particular, there exist hundreds of sites of Jewish mass murder. But most of these could never have been conducted without, not just the tacit support of the civilian population, but their active participation.

Most of these could never have been conducted without, not just the tacit support of the civilian population, but their active participation.

In the Lithuanian town of Alytus, for example, the SS had fewer than a dozen men in post – yet over 2,000 local Jews were slaughtered here. The granddaughter of one of them, Faina Kukliansky, provided Bulgin with evidence that she, and numbers of other Jewish schoolchildren, were actually killed by their very own classmates. Eighty per cent of the population of one Lithuanian town were Jewish; every one was put to death in a programme managed by locals.

Unbearable viewing

Bulgin claims that, largely thanks to aerial photography and other recent advances in technology, the story is being told for the first time. In reality, much of his account has been known for many years – though it’s no doubt true that some of the details have never before been revealed. Either way, though thoroughly shocking throughout, the documentary is highly illuminating, and gripping from start to finish.

At various points throughout the hour-long documentary, crude film footage and photographs make almost unbearable watching – providing at least a hint of how horrific beyond belief were the atrocities committed. One ‘home movie’ shot by a German soldier shows local Jews being marched into trenches and shot in the head. Spectators gather round to watch, smoking and talking.

In denial

A Lithuanian author who wrote an account of her country’s involvement in the murder of Lithuanian Jews was branded a traitor for writing about it, spat at in the street, and forced to leave Lithuania for a number of years. Interviewed by Bulgin, she testified that the people of her country are in complete denial about the subject, which remains firmly closed to conversation to this day.

People all over Eastern Europe welcomed the Nazis with open arms, with the hope they would keep them free from the threat from the Communists.

We’re told how people all over Eastern Europe welcomed the Nazis with open arms, with the hope they would keep them free from the threat from the Communists. As the Nazis spread propaganda that Communism was a Jewish conspiracy, vengeance was carried out against all local Jews.

The biggest murder spree up to that point took place at the infamous Babyn Yar ravine, just outside the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in September ‘41. Here, Jews were shot at the staggering rate of 1,700 an hour over two entire days – just one of literally hundreds of landmarks where unspeakable atrocities were committed against people whose only 'crime' was their ethnic identity.

From bullets to the gas chamber

The use of bullets in mass shootings was soon deemed unsustainable, however, because it was affecting the mental health of the soldiers carrying out the killings, many of whom experienced vomiting attacks and psychosomatic disorders. SS major Rudolf Lange was tasked with experimenting to procure a more ‘civilised’ means of extermination. Deep in a Polish forest he arranged for quicklime to be poured into trenches, and hot water added; in these hell-holes, some 3,000 Jews were literally boiled alive, an unthinkable process that lasted several hours.

But quicklime was expensive, and Lande was keen to use a more efficient killing agent. In an old SS prison in Poland – Fort 7 – used in 1939 to ‘do away’ with physically and mentally disabled ‘rejects’, Lande developed a whole new concept in mass murder – in perhaps the world’s first gas chamber.

In these hell-holes, some 3,000 Jews were literally boiled alive, an unthinkable process that took several hours.

By early 1942, millions of Jews were taken from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, and sent to extermination camps like Auschwitz and Belsen, to become no more than ash and memory. It took just six months to get here from the first bullets fired in the east.

Tough questions

How did that happen, Bulgin asks. Of course, Hitler’s poisonous ideology was instrumental. But there needed to be more than ideology. What was required was tens of thousands of ordinary people – to betray a neighbour, or turn their backs and say nothing; to help round up and rob; to sign an order, pull a trigger or open a valve. To see others as sufficiently different from them to be killed.

The documentary leaves the viewer with some further pertinent questions. Among them; what could possibly have led ordinary peace-abiding citizens to be willing to turn against their very neighbours and participate in such unimaginable horrors? Equally sobering, what might it take to lead civilised people in the western world to adopting a similar mindset and engaging in not incomparable inhumanities in the twenty-first century?

Fear and propaganda

Other than the catastrophic horrors, one of the things that stands out to me is the state of mind the Eastern European citizens were in – one of fear. Fear of the communists, fear of the Nazis, fear of the war engulfing them. That was the fertile ground into which the Nazi propaganda lie that the Jews were responsible was seeded. Perhaps that should be a warning sign in the present day, when there is much that could cause us to fear.

May we never forget God's words to Joshua: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Josh 1:9); and Paul's instruction to Timothy: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim 1:7)

How the Holocaust Began is available to watch on BBC iplayer for the next 11 months.