The Commandant's Shadow

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.

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 trail 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 by raking over old coals. This is a constant source of chagrin for her daughter Maya, who seems to be living a life that sees her suffer vicariously. It's as if she believes that she has inherited some of her mother's fears and trauma and it's nigh on impossible for her to find closure. To that end, she is determined to reclaim her German citizenship and leave the UK to live in her motherland despite not having a word of German. The gist of the remainder of the film sets out to challenge just how much Hans (he was around four years old at the time) may have known about his father's activities. Has his brain intentionally shut out any memories of these atrocities or does he know more than he claims? It's this slightly confrontational aspect that didn't sit so well with me. There's something bordering on the accusatory about the way in which this man, now eighty years old, is being interviewed - and by his own pastor son Kai, too. Indeed, as we progress the thrust shifts more to the needs of these adult children rather than maintain a more interesting focus on the story of those who were both at the camp at the same time - separated by a thin brick wall that might as well have been a mile wide. The last five minutes generates amongst the most poignant scenarios I've seen on television when the two meet - and that's what I wanted far more of. The blameless child and the blameless victim having an honest chat over a coffee and some strudel about what they remembered, what they knew and most importantly, how mankind might learn from this and just what does it mean to be God's 'chosen people' - indeed for families of considerable faith, just where was God in all of this? With the rise of nationalism and anti-semitism in Europe, could the unthinkable ever actually happen again? It could have been fascinating just to sit and listen to them. Perhaps that wasn't an option - at times Anita didn't seem quite so engaged with the whole process, perhaps having erected her own psychosomatic walls to protect her from the ghastliness of her experiences as she approaches her own significant milestone. These sort of documentaries won't be possible for too much longer, and this is definitely heart-rending, occasionally a little humorous and thought-provoking, but I think just the two with some Riesling would have delivered much more intimate and powerfully.