The Commandant's Shadow

Daniela Volker's 2024 documentary follows Hans-Jurgen Hoss, son of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss. Hans-Jurgen spent his childhood in the villa beside the camp and never confronted what his father did. The second strand follows Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a musician who was held in the same camp and survived. The moment at the centre is the two of them meeting eighty years later. That meeting is not staged as reconciliation; Lasker-Wallfisch does not accept an apology. What is interesting is the second generation. Hans-Jurgen's son Kai and Anita's daughter Maya speak as people who grew up with their parents' silence. The documentary shows how trauma and guilt are handed down, from both sides at once. Who it's for: those interested in Holocaust history and in intergenerational memory. Who it's not for: viewers who want to avoid narratives of genocide; the documentary contains archive footage and testimony.