The Nazi, the Painter

In 2006 an old canister of film was discovered in a Devon church. How it got there was a mystery and its contents were tantalizing. The film showed members of the German SS and Police building a road, and the grainy black and white footage appeared to have been shot in Ukraine and Crimea in 1943. Aired on the BBC the footage caused a sensation, but there were few clues as to who the protagonists were, and what it was they were doing. World War II historian G. H. Bennett spent four years piecing together the story of this film, and identifying its principal characters. In the process he uncovered an overlooked chapter of the holocaust: a wartime German road-building project that exterminated Jewish lives whilst laying the infrastructure for a utopian Nazi haven in Ukraine. Bennett tells the story of the road and its builders through the experiences of Alfred Daghanai, a Romanian artist who was one of the few Jewish labourers to survive. Daghanai describes the brutal treatment he endured, and the beating, torture and murder of his fellow Jews by the German captors. He also describes Daghanai's post-War efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. A moving and sometimes horrifying chronicle of suffering and deprivation, The Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road retells an important episode in the history of World War II. The book's human story will have wide general appeal, as well as having much to say to students and scholars of military history. 'This surprising and artful book mixes the history of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine and of the Holocaust with present perspectives. It entertains and enriches our understanding of a terrible time.' -- Richard Breitman