A viewer’s stomach is upset by the first surprise this captivating Nikolaus film offers, which is perhaps the most disconcerting outcome. Hans Jürgen Höss, who is now old and the son of Nazi Commandant Rudolf Höss (executed in 1947), is being shown an old house which was his childhood home. It is a war-torn house with “paradise flower garden” next to the camp, where the family lived their strangely harmless and ignorant life, claiming not knowing what was taking place just over the wall. This is the house and garden that have been painstakingly replicated around the same place where the original was situated by Jonathan Glazer and Chris Oddy in the Oscar winning film The Zone of Interest. For the people who have seen the movie, there is a sick feeling in the stomach in watching the house of Holtzman again, as though it is rejoinder of a satanic horror film.
However, this documentary is also captivating due to its propositions that their strange lack of awareness was a part of a broader strategy adopted by various Germans in the postwar era to evade feelings of sympathy and that this dysfunctional blindness, which is used in the film as a brilliant metaphor, might not have been the reality, even for the children. Incidentally, no one here is inquiring whether they have watched The Zone of Interest and in any case, the term is mentioned a few times in the opening credits, and the film surely has its own impact.
Meeting her are Hans Jürgen and the filmmaker’s son Kai Höss who is now a pastor in southern Germany and works closely with the US military; his English twang has a distinct American Bible belt accent when he speaks from the pulpit. It is quite impressive however, that the Holocaust survivor, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, based in London agreed to have the two men visit her home with her daughter Maya present. Both men are quiet, contemplative, and remorseful and it is obvious that in a way, it was a caring meeting; Lasker-Wallfisch remembers it as “lovely.” For instance: this was not the case during the 1998 Oscar-winning documentary The Last Days, which featured Nazi doctor Hans Münch who had worked in Auschwitz and met the latter’s sister; she called out for the man to give her healing, only to have him become infuriated and blank out when attention was drawn to specific facts.
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