THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW – Review by Loren King
By focusing on the specific stories of several individuals, director Daniela Volker’s The Commandant’s Shadow explores universal issues about generational trauma related to the Holocaust. It’s a moving and profound journey that we take with the son, daughter, and grandson of notorious Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss, the Nazi responsible for the systematic murder of millions and the subject of Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest.
Hoss’s survivors carried the burden of secrecy as each coped in their own way; Hoss’s elderly daughter remains in denial while his son Hans, at 87, finally reconciles the loving father he knew with the man he now calls a “monster” for sending millions to their deaths. Hoss’s crimes also cast long shadows over countless victims, survivors, and the descendants of survivors. These include 98 year-old Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who saw her entire family murdered but survived Auschwitz because she played cello in the orchestra that, in the Nazis’ macabre fashion, accompanied human beings to their slaughter.
Her daughter Maya struggles to understand the monumental loss of family history and the loss of such a central part of her mother whose steely resolve kept despair at bay. By profiling individuals linked by shared horror, the film raises questions about how one lives after witnessing unfathomable trauma and learning about the sins of ancestors. Hoss’s grandson Kai turns to the Bible; Maya moves from London to Berlin where she works to unearth facts of what happened to her relatives.
The film shows how accurately The Zone of Interest depicted the Hoss family’s comfortable life in the shadow of the death camp and their hubris and denial, evidenced even in the autobiography that Rudolph Hoss wrote shortly before his execution. It’s a stunning companion piece. But the documentary expands to a wider canvass as both a stark reckoning with hate and an examination of its ongoing legacy of trauma.
