“I had a really beautiful and idyllic childhood,” says Hans-Jurgen Höss. “We had a beautiful mother and father.” The 87-year-old was one of five siblings who lived just outside the walls of Auschwitz, the concentration camp where more than one million people were murdered during the Holocaust. He is the son of SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, the infamous Auschwitz commandant and the subject of Jonathan Glazer’s chilling drama The Zone of Interest.
This similarly themed documentary both complements and deepens that depiction of Auschwitz operations. Documentarian Daniela Völker’s absorbing film demonstrates the unnerving historical detail of Glazer’s project. Looking at surviving images of the Höss family residence, it’s easy to confuse archival shots with stills from The Zone of Interest. Even the accents are uncannily similar.
At the behest of his son, 62-year-old Christian preacher Kai Höss, Hans re-examines a childhood he associates with summer days and boy-sized toy planes built and gifted by Polish prisoners. His family home was less than 200m from the gas chambers.
Jurgen’s willingness to face up to the past is counterpointed by his older sister, Brigitte: “I will never be angry with my dad. He must’ve been a very strong person to live like this and do what he had to do.”
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On the other side of the fence that separated Jurgen from the concentration camp, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a young Jewish cellist played with the orchestra. Now aged 98, she recalls bowing for her life. After the war she moved to England and co-founded the English Chamber Orchestra. “When I arrived in England, nobody asked any questions about Auschwitz,” she says matter-of-factly, “so we didn’t talk about it.”
[ ‘We’ll be talking about this Auschwitz film for decades to come’Opens in new window ]
Her daughter Maya, a psychotherapist specialising in intergenerational trauma, grew up with a keen sense of the Holocaust. “I was brought up with messages like, ‘’You’re not going to the gas chamber, you’re not starving. You’ve had a piece of bread. What’s your problem?’’ says Maya. Anita suggests she was the wrong mother for her daughter: “Traumatised? Forget it. Get on with life.”
Völker’s sensitive film brings together these two wounded families to sit down for tea. It’s a fascinating encounter defined by guilt and unspeakable hurt. There is no sense of absolution or cathartic breakthrough. There is only imperfect reckoning.
