Synopsis

United States, UK / 2024 / 103’
Documentary

THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW follows Hans Jürgen Höss, 87, confronting his father Rudolf Höss’s dark legacy as Auschwitz’s commandant, fictionalized in The Zone of Interest. In a historic London encounter, Hans meets survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, whose day-to-day struggle for survival eight decades ago unfolded in jarring dissonance to Höss’ happy childhood just on the other side of the barbed wire. Accompanied by their children in a historic encounter in Anita’s living room, the two recount their parallel stories with painful honesty, raising timeless and pertinent questions about guilt and forgiveness across generations.