A Night With Hitler's Children

A sold out showing of Chanoch Zeevi’s documentary Hitler’s Children was hosted by OSU history professor Paul Kopperman on Feb. 16.

Roughly 60 people gathered within the rose colored walls of the cozy Darkside Cinema in downtown Corvallis. The documentary featured interviews with descendants of high ranking Nazi officers during The Holocaust.

Seats were full with additional seatless viewers standing in the aisle ramps. The night started like a normal movie, the crinkle of candy wrappers filled the room. As the film would continue the sound of wrappers would cease and faint sniffles would overcome the crowd. Emotion was high during the discussion that would follow the screening lead by Kopperman.

The descendents of some of history’s ugliest characters talked about how their lives have been affected by the choices made by their fathers, grandfathers and great-uncles over seven decades ago during World War II.

Of the five descendents featured in the film, only two lived during the reign of their Nazi relatives.

Niklas Frank, son of Nazi lawyer Hans Frank, was seven when his father was executed in October 1946 for his war crimes. Frank recalled the glamor surrounding his experience on the outskirts of the camps as a young boy growing up. He told of luxurious rides in Mercedes-Benz along the caged walls of the camps and drinking hot cocoa with high ranking Nazi officials. Outside the facade people were dying in the thousands.

In the film Frank revealed his father’s role in history tore apart him and his four siblings. Some siblings chose to ignore their father’s crimes but Frank chose a different path. Ashamed of his father he spends his days visiting schools committed to educating young people on the devastation his father caused.

Monika Goeth, daughter of Amon Goeth, was less than a year old when her dad was hanged in September 1946 for his war crimes. Goeth’s father was the commander of Krakow-Plaszow death camp and was the first of the officers tried to also be charged with homicide. He was said to be responsible for personally killing 500 prisoners.
 

In the film Goeth talked of her experience going to watch Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and seeing her father famously depicted in the film standing on his balcony overlooking the camp and shooting unsuspecting prisoners for sport.

“If it doesn’t stop I’ll go crazy right here in this theatre,” she thought when reality came to life on the screen.

Her father’s role in The Holocaust was a tight lipped family secret. Not until a by-chance meeting of a survivor from her father’s camp did she learn of the feared murderer he was.

Bettina Goering, the great-niece of Hermann Goering, explained for the camera that she and her brother made the extreme choice to sterilize themselves to ensure they “killed the bloodline” of their less than great-uncle. He was the highest ranking officer convicted of war crimes and was sentenced to death. However in October 1946, the night before his scheduled execution, he committed suicide by cyanide poisoning.

Rainer Hoess, grandson of Rudolf Hoess, teared up in several scenes while sharing the heavy burden he has to live with. His grandfather was the commander of Auschwitz, possibly the most feared camp, where an estimated 1.2 million prisoners were murdered. His father was hanged in April 1947 for his crimes, ironically on the gallows at Auschwitz.

Hoess revealed that his father who grew up on the grounds of Auschwitz shared some of the same traits his Nazi grandfather did. The guilt of his linage is overwhelming in the film.

“My father had the same cold nature. He never let us show weakness, show emotion.” Hoess himself also looks much like his grandfather and added, “I was afraid people would recognize me,” when discussing his own shared traits.

The film depicted Hoess walking the grounds of Auschwitz with pictures of his father standing in various locations. He held one photo of his grandfather and questioned out loud how he could dress so impeccably, kiss his family goodbye, and then leave the house and kill a few thousand people.

Katrin Himmler is the granddaughter of Ernst Himmler who was the brother of one of the most prominent Nazi officers, Heinrich Himmler. He was captured by the British while trying to flee after the war. He committed suicide in their custody in May 1945 before he could be tried for his crimes.

Himmler told how she has distanced herself from her family. She revealed the disgust she has with her family tree and with her grandmother who kept in touch with several imprisoned Nazis after the war. She wrote a book about her family and said she was cut off from many of them, but for her it was worth not keeping the truth trapped.

“When you are a descendant of bad people you are touched by evil.”

She feels she wrote the book to do her part to correct history.

When the 80 minute film concluded there was no round of applause. Instead, there was a solemn silence and no movement. It was as if the attendees were paying their respects to lives lost and lives destroyed.

When Kopperman stood in front of viewers he began dialog with the diverse crowd ranging from the ages of 20 to 80.

People shared their thoughts and the impact the film had on them. Some were struck by the heavy responsibility the children felt for the family they were born into and the need to seek forgiveness. Others commented on the consequences in their lives bearing the sin of their ancestors. Some talked about the different stages of suffering caused by the guilt of each generation to come. A few were candid with their opinion of the sociopathic evil that the Nazis embodied.

Perhaps a good reminder came from attendee Judy Russell.

“Not all Germans believed in what the Nazis did but they were swept up in it.”

Belief or not, it took six years, 11 million deaths, and the involvement of over 100 countries to finally bring the horror to an end in 1945.

The film Hitler’s Children is available on Netflix. Due to its local success, it is also showing again at the Darkside Cinema on Sunday Feb. 23 at 11:30 a.m.