As part of our programmes commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, in partnership with the British High Commission in Pretoria, invites you to a screening of the documentary The Commandant’s Shadow.

About the Film

The film, The Commandant’s Shadow, follows Hans Jürgen Höss, the 87-year-old son of Rudolf Höss, as he faces his father’s terrible legacy for the first time. His father was the Camp Commandant of Auschwitz and masterminded the murder of over a million Jews. The life of Hans and his family was recently fictionalised in the Academy Award-winning film, The Zone of Interest. Now, The Commandant’s Shadow, tells the story of the real people who lived on site at Auschwitz. While Hans 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 in Anita’s London living room.