Documentary · History
The Commandant's Shadow
His father murdered more than a million Jews at Auschwitz. She survived the camp against all odds. 80 years later, they come face to face.
While Hans Jurgen Höss enjoyed a happy childhood in the family villa at Auschwitz, Jewish prisoner Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was trying to survive the notorious concentration camp. At the heart of this film is the historic and inspiring moment – eight decades later – when the two come face-to-face. This is the first time the descendant of a major war criminal meets a survivor in such a private and intimate setting, Anita’s London living room. Together with their children, Kai Höss and Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, the four protagonists explore their very different hereditary burdens.
Trailer
Top Cast
Hans-Jürgen Höss
Self
Kai Höss
Self
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
Self
Maya Lasker-Wallfisch
Self
Rudolf Höss
Self (archive footage)
Adolf Hitler
Self (archive footage)
Directed by
Daniela Völker
Production
Reviews
CinemaSerf
7/107/16/2024
To be honest, I was a little disappointed with this documentary. Occasionally using some truly gruesome archive footage, we are introduced to Hans Höss, the son of the the man who not just commanded the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, but who was largely instrumental in creating the complex in the first place. Loosely using a narration from the autobiography he wrote whilst awaiting trial after the war, we learn a little of the politics that drove this efficient administrator to build a facility that ended up killing ten thousand people a day, whilst seemingly silent at home with his family about just what his day job actually was. Meantime, in London, we meet survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. She's a remarkably stoic character who believes that there is little to be gained
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