Nazi legacy: The troubled descendants. Image caption. Amon Goeth's daughter Monika only learned the true extent of her father's war crimes when she watched the film Schindler's List. The names of Himmler, Goering, Goeth and Hoess still have the power to evoke the horrors of Nazi Germany, but what is it like to live with the legacy of those surnames, and is it ever possible to move on from the terrible crimes committed by your ancestors? He remembers his mother lifting the heavy lid of the fireproof chest with a large swastika on the lid, revealing bundles of family photos. The photos show a pool with a slide and a sand pit - an idyllic family setting - but one that was separated from the gas chambers of Auschwitz by just a few yards. Media caption. Rainer Hoess visits the Auschwitz villa where his father lived. His grandfather Rudolf Hoess (not to be confused with Nazi deputy leader Rudolf Hess), was the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. Hitler's Strawberries (1998) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Nazi legacy: The troubled descendants. It was where his grandmother told the children to wash the strawberries they picked because. Hitler's Children is. Strawberries with the F It was where his grandmother told the children to wash the strawberries they picked because they smelled. His father grew up in a villa adjoining the camp, where he and his siblings played with toys built by prisoners. It was where his grandmother told the children to wash the strawberries they picked because they smelled of ash from the concentration camp ovens. I carry the guilt with me in my mind. To carry this guilt, this burden, to try to come to terms with it. For Katrin Himmler, putting pen to paper was her way of coping with having Heinrich Himmler in her family.
It's something that just keeps hanging over you. She wrote The Himmler Brothers: A German Family History, in a quest to . I no longer need to be ashamed of this family connection. Her father found it very hard to talk about it. It made me feel sick. She was a baby when her father Amon Goeth was tried and hanged for killing tens of thousands of Jews. Goeth was the sadistic commander of Plaszow concentration camp, but Monika was brought up by her mother as if the horrors had never happened. As a child she created a rose- tinted version of her father from family photos. When she repeatedly asked how many, her mother . Goeth was played by Ralph Fiennes and Monika says watching it . Both she and her brother chose to be sterilised. While Bettina decided to travel far from the site of her relatives' crimes, Rainer Hoess decided he had to visit the heart of his family's shame - Auschwitz. Seeing his father's childhood home he broke down and kept repeating the word . In the visitors centre he encountered the raw emotion of descendants of camp victims. One young Israeli girl broke down as she told him his grandfather had exterminated her family - she could not believe he had chosen to face them. As Rainer spoke about his guilt and shame, a former Auschwitz prisoner at the back at the room asked if he could shake his hand. They embraced as Zvika told Rainer how he gives talks to young people, but tells them the relatives are not to blame as they were not there. For Rainer this was a major moment in dealing with the burden of his family's guilt.
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January 2017
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