Director: Michael Kloft
In 1941, Hitler ordered the German Army to invade Russia. The Nazis raced across Russia's heartland until they reached Leningrad - the cradle of the Bolshevik Revolution. But the city did not fall quickly to Hitler's troops. Instead it resisted.
The siege of Leningrad began on September 8, 1941 and ended on January 27, 1944. For 872 days the city was surrounded. Within, the inhabitants fell into despair, starvation and cannibalism. Well over a million people lost their lives during this period. It is a breathtaking story both of heroism and mankind's failings - and one of the worst atrocities carried out by Germany during the Second World War. The unbreakable will and suffering of the people of modern day St. Petersburg remains, to this day, the stuff of legend.
In Michael Kloft's astonishing new documentary, British historian Anna Reid uses eyewitness accounts and files of the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) to help bring to light what actually happened in Leningrad during the siege. Rarely seen film and photographic material, original diaries and documents from the time illustrate the tragedy.
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