The World at War TV series (Thames Television, 1973-74; prod: Jeremy Isaacs; narrator: Sir Laurence Olivier) was the first time that the story of the Holocaust was told to a large, popular television audience (each episode got ratings of up to 10 million viewers).

In this special event, organised as part of the British Association for Holocaust Studies’ conference, we will focus  on ITV’s ‘The World at War’. The particular episode on the Holocaust, titled Genocide, is a remarkable episode on many levels not the least of which is that it was there at all when the Holocaust was not always part of the treatment of the events of World War Two. Revealed will tell the story of the concept behind the series and the decision to make what was the biggest factual series ever produced by ITV.

It will tell the story of the making of the Genocide episode, the search for and interviewing of both Holocaust survivors and of senior SS members (the episode includes a memorable interview with Himmler’s Adjutant, Karl Wolff) and also the extraordinary and unexpected reaction that the first screening of the episode prompted. A clip from Genocide will be featured.

Taylor Downing is television documentary producer and a scholar of 20th century conflict and of the history of film and television. His book on The World at War series was published as a BFI Television Classic (Palgrave/Macmillan) in 2012. Other recent books include Cold War (with Jeremy Isaacs, Abacus 2008); Spies in the Sky (Little, Brown 2011) and Breakdown: The Crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme, 1996 (Little, Brown 2016).