An extraordinary film of truth and reconciliation from director Daniela Volker that was highly deserving of this year’s Yad Vashem Award for outstanding Holocaust-related documentary
The Commandant’s Shadow is a remarkable documentary that brings together the son and grandson of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, with survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and her daughter Maya. Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest presented a fictionalised version of daily life in a simulacrum of the Nazi’s family home. This documentary from director Daniela Volker steps inside the original house, with Höss’s son Hans Jürgen and grandson Kai.
It’s a gripping and fascinating feature-length film, with a riveting cast, strong narrative, stunning photography and touches of humour. The Commandant’s Shadow provides facts and archive footage, addressing questions that Glazer’s movie raised but left unanswered. As well as fulfilling the Reithian Principle (‘to inform, educate and entertain’) Volker’s documentary is scrupulously edited and presents the after-effects of the dark shadow cast by Höss, who killed more than a million people, most of them Jews.
