The Commandant's Shadow

His father murdered more than a million Jews at Auschwitz. She survived the camp against all odds. 80 years later, they come face to face.

An intimate documentary confrontation between a Holocaust survivor and the son of Auschwitz's commandant, exploring inherited trauma, moral reckoning, and the possibility of human connection across historical atrocity.

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.