麻豆社

A new documentary, The Commandant's Shadow, follows the son of an Auschwitz commander as he faces the reality of his father鈥檚 role in the Holocaust.

In the film, Hans J眉rgen H枚ss, the now elderly son of the Nazi Auschwitz commandant Rudolf H枚ss (executed in 1947), is taken to see his childhood home: the wartime house with its 鈥減aradise flower garden鈥� just next to the infamous German wartime concentration camp, where the H枚ss family lived their grotesquely peaceful and innocent existence, all unaware (or so they said) of what was going on just over the wall. Their living situation was also recently portrayed in the Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest.

H枚ss鈥檚 grandson, Kai H枚ss, speaks to Julian Worricker about how he discovered his family鈥檚 history, the visit he made with his father to his childhood home and a powerful meeting with an Auschwitz survivor.

鈥淚t shocked me... My grandfather was a person who could take a mum鈥檚 children and pass them into the gas chamber,鈥� he says.

(Image: Screenshot from documentary The Commandant's Shadow, directed by Daniela Volker, shows Hans J眉rgen H枚ss and his son on his visit to Auschwitz. Credit: Warner Bros Entertainment)

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