In October 1941, the plans for the new camp extension at Auschwitz-Birkenau, already designed to house 100,000 people in the most terrible conditions, are altered to take even more inmates.

But no more room is created to accommodate the additional 30,000 people. All that is changed is the number of prisoners expected to live in each block.

Suffering is built into the very plans. 10,000 Soviet prisoners are put to work building the extension. They are the victims of appalling brutality, singled out by the Nazis as subhuman and beaten mercilessly.

By now many of Germany's Jews are being sent to the Lodz Ghetto in Poland but, unknown to them, this is not to be their final destination.