Open Diaries

Widely praised as the most authentic film ever made of Jewish life within the Holocaust, "Lodz Ghetto" combines secret diaries with clandestine images to depict life in the longest surviving concentration of Jews in Nazi Europe.

Through previously undiscovered private letters, photos and diaries that were found in the Himmler family house in 1945, this documentary exposes a unique and at times uncomfortable access to the life and mind of the merciless 'architect of the Final Solution', Heinrich Himmler. Himmler writes, 'In life one must always be decent, courageous and kind-hearted'. How can a man be a hero in his own eyes and a mass murderer in the eyes of the world?

In these two 2-hour specials, HISTORY channel digs deep beneath the surface of our collective understanding of the Third Reich to unearth what we don't know about the individuals who comprised one of the most fascinating and complex regimes of recent history.

Fifty years after her 1962 death, two boxes of Marilyn Monroe's writings - diaries, poems and letters - were discovered in the home of Lee Strasberg, her acting coach. The film features dramatic readings of Monroe's words by actors, film critics, journalists and authors, and archival footage of Hollywood insiders who knew or worked with the American star.

Using Robert Menzies' World War II diaries and remarkable 16mm film, this dramatised documentary lifts the lid on a bitter behind-the-scenes battle between Winston Churchill and the Australian Prime Minister as the fate of Australia hung in the balance.

Adam Nicolson takes an intimate look at the 17th century's diarists and letter writers and how they produced the first great age of self-depiction.

Timeshift reveals the history of the frozen continent, finding out why the most inhospitable place on the planet has exerted such a powerful hold on the imagination of explorers, scientists, writers and photographers. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place on the globe. Only a handful of people have experienced its desolate beauty, with the first explorers setting foot here barely a hundred years ago. From the logbooks of Captain Cook to the diaries of Scott and Shackleton, from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to HP Lovecraft, it is a film about real and imaginary tales of adventure, romance and tragedy that have played out against a stark white backdrop.

In this special episode of George Clarke's Amazing Spaces, George and Will Hardie meet the daughter of a survivor of a World War II Japanese prisoner of war camp who has uncovered a remarkable secret. Jan Fursier has discovered in one of her father Reg's wartime diaries an immaculately illustrated guide to building a 1930s caravan, painstakingly created by her dad while held in captivity.

Following the death of Britain's greatest satirist in 1995, Peter Cook's widow Lin locked the door of his house and refused all access to the media. Until this year, when she invited her friend Victor Lewis-Smith and a BBC crew inside to make a documentary about the man she knew and loved, with unprecedented access to Peter's private recordings, diaries, letters, photographs and much more.