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The real Auschwitz commandant — and Yiddish resistance song — behind ‘The Zone of Interest’
(JTA) – “The Zone of Interest” is not like other Holocaust movies.
Directed by British Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, the film initially appears to follow an unexceptional German family in the 1940s and their idyllic lifestyle in a cute cottage near a river. A father (Christian Friedel), a mother (Sandra Hüller) and their five children host parties, go swimming, tend to their garden and read bedtime stories at night.
Only gradually does the movie reveal that this family’s seemingly idyllic homeis located directly adjacent to the Auschwitz death camp — and that the patriarch is none other than Rudolf Höss, that camp’s real-life commandant, who directly oversaw the systematic murder of more than a million Jews, and perhaps many more. Audiences never see these murders, but they hear the horrific evidence of the slaughter: screams, gunshots and the machinery of the gas chambers.
“The Zone of Interest,” which won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, never shows the inside of the camp’s operations. Yet it is still rooted firmly in historical realities about the Holocaust and in the minute details of how the Hösses lived comfortably alongside it, ignoring the mass suffering their father was orchestrating.
Glazer and his team did years of research before filming in an effort to capture the tonal disconnect of the moment, in perhaps the purest cinematic distillation yet of German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt’s famous proclamation about “the banality of evil.”
“I wanted to dismantle the idea of them as anomalies, as almost supernatural,” Glazer, who also adapted the script, told The New York Times about his depiction of the Hösses. “I wanted to show that these were crimes committed by Mr. and Mrs. Smith at No. 26.”
Here’s what you need to know about the new film, which is gathering awards buzz and has been shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar as it enters a limited theatrical release this month.
What is “The Zone of Interest” based on?
Glazer, whose previous films include “Under the Skin,” “Sexy Beast” and “Birth,” adapted his script for “The Zone of Interest” from the late British author Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same title. But the film differs considerably from the novel, and has a greater basis in historical fact.
While Amis’ novel followed multiple plotlines, including a love triangle, set in and around Auschwitz, Glazer’s script stripped away everything except the Höss family at its center. He also made his film about the real Höss family, whereas Amis (who died as the film was premiering at Cannes) had rendered fictional versions of them.
Glazer also went further, hiring researchers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland to look into details of the Höss family’s lifestyle. (The film was shot near the museum, in a formerly dilapidated house the production crew transformed into a replica of the actual Höss home.) He was also, he told The Times, inspired by sources like Timothy Snyder’s “Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning,” and the writings of Gillian Rose.
Rudolf Höss, far right, is shown in a photograph with, from left, fellow SS officers Richard Baer and Dr. Josef Mengele, at Solahütte, the SS retreat outside of Auschwitz. (Karl Höcker album/U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Who was Rudolf Höss?
Rudolf Höss was the Nazi commandant who oversaw the mass killing operations at Auschwitz-Birkenau, having been posted there from 1940 until nearly the end of the war. Before Auschwitz, Höss — born Catholic and a World War I veteran who became a committed Nazi from the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power — was posted at the Dachau and Sachsenhausen camps, where he learned the tricks of the trade of mass death.
Within the Nazi upper ranks, Höss was considered, according to an SS report, a “true pioneer” for his mass-killing innovations at the camp, which became the deadliest site of the war under his watch. After the Final Solution began being implemented in 1941, Höss installed gas chambers and ovens at Auschwitz capable of killing thousands of people every hour and disposing of their bodies; from then on, the camp was a brutally efficient system of death. He was also the one who introduced the poisonous gas Zyklon B to the camps, impressing Adolf Eichmann.
As portrayed in the film, Höss was briefly transferred to a more administrative role within the Nazi Party in 1943 — a move that the family gardener has testified angered Rudolf’s wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), because she believed the family had everything they needed at Auschwitz. (Glazer has said that his need to understand this argument between the two of them was the driving force behind the film.) However, he was reassigned to the camp the following year to oversee the mass extermination of Hungarian Jewry in an operation named after him.
He went into hiding after the war, but was tracked down by Hanns Alexander, a German Jewish Nazi hunter, and stood trial in Poland in 1947, where he was sentenced to death. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency covered his trial at the time.
Höss admitted to his role in the genocide in a written statement in which he coldly describes the “improvements” his Auschwitz team made over similar extermination efforts at Treblinka — using the same dispassionate, removed cadence spoken by the movie’s version of Höss.
Höss was hanged in Auschwitz at the age of 45, on gallows he himself had ordered constructed at the camp.
The Höss family, depicted above in a scene from “The Zone of Interest,” tended a garden in their home on the edge of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. (Courtesy of A24)
What do we know about the Höss family?
The bulk of “The Zone of Interest” focuses not on the mass extermination, but rather on the particulars of Höss’ family life and the ways in which this Nazi clan mentally separated the two. As in the movie, the real Höss family lived in an impeccably maintained two-story house that bordered Auschwitz: They could see the prisoner blocks and crematoria from their upstairs window.
Rudolf and Hedwig saw themselves as homesteaders, fulfilling the Nazi ideal of reclaiming rural territory for the master race. While Rudolf went to work at the camps every morning, Hedwig busied herself with her social life and proudly accepted the moniker of “Queen of Auschwitz.” Historian Thomas Harding wrote about how they stocked their closets with clothes and jewelry seized from the Jews who were exterminated, and with the help of a large waitstaff, including some Auschwitz prisoners, they kept a garden, often entertained guests and swam and canoed on the nearby Sola River with their kids. (One scene in the movie depicts Rudolf hurrying his kids away from the river once he realizes it is full of human ash from the camps.)
After Rudolf was caught and hanged after the war, his family was free to go, but they were shunned by German society. One of his daughters, Brigitte, would later move to the U.S., where she worked for decades at a Washington, D.C. fashion store owned by Jews who had fled the Nazis after Kristallnacht, and her mother came to visit her frequently. In 2013, at the age of 80, Brigitte told Harding she hardly thought about her Auschwitz childhood, but that she recalled her father as “the nicest man in the world,” said she believed his confession had been coerced by the British, and doubted the reported death tolls at the camp.
What is the Yiddish song featured in the movie?
Late in the film, an unnamed character — likely a partisan — sits down at a piano to play a song with an unusual melody. The song is “Sunbeams,” a little-heard resistance song composed inside Auschwitz by the Polish Jewish prisoner Joseph Wulf. Though it is not sung out loud, the lyrics appear on the screen as the plaintive melody is played, and Wulf’s own voice (recorded in the late 1960s) introduces it.
Wulf wrote:
Sunbeams, radiant and warm
Human bodies, young and old
And who are imprisoned here,
Our hearts are yet not cold
According to the Forward, Glazer’s research team reached out to musicologists at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum seeking obscure Yiddish music that had been written in Auschwitz.
Wulf himself survived the camp and a death march in 1945, settled in Germany in the 1950s and became a historian who tried to force German society to confront and account for the crimes of the Nazi regime. He also became a West Berlin correspondent for JTA.
Wulf spent his life trying to turn the site of the Wannsee Conference, where the Nazis formalized the Final Solution, into a Holocaust memorial that he would head up. But it didn’t happen in his lifetime. In 1974 he leaped to his death from his Berlin apartment.
In a note to his son, Wulf lamented: “I have published 18 books about the Third Reich and they have had no effect … The mass murderers walk around free, live in their little houses, and grow flowers.”
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The post The real Auschwitz commandant — and Yiddish resistance song — behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Supreme Court to Weigh Landmark Terrorism Case Targeting Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Program
PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Reuters/Caitlin Ochs
In a case that could redefine the legal landscape for victims of terrorism seeking justice, the US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) over their role in incentivizing violence against Americans abroad.
The high-profile brief — filed this week by a legal coalition and more than a dozen organizations in response to the 2018 murder of Israeli-American Ari Fuld by a Palestinian terrorist — calls on justices to hold Palestinian leadership accountable for its controversial “pay-for-slay” program.
The amicus brief, submitted on Tuesday by the International Legal Forum (ILF) and 16 other Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, argues that the PA and PLO have long been complicit in orchestrating and financially rewarding acts of terror.
“Since their founding, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have been an instrumental element in inciting, funding, and rewarding terrorism, especially through the pay-for-slay program,” ILF CEO Arsen Ostrovsky told The Algemeiner. “They are not a powerless bystander but a leading driver of modern-day terrorism. Enough is enough.”
The so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme has been widely condemned by US lawmakers, with reports estimating that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families. As outlined in the ILF’s legal filing, “the more deadly the attack and the longer the terrorist spends in prison, the greater the stipends they receive.”
The legal brief contends that the US Congress has clear constitutional authority to permit American victims of Palestinian terrorism to sue the PA and PLO in US courts, since these entities have maintained a presence on American soil and were previously warned that their activities could expose them to legal action. Palestinian leaders “had been on notice that their activities would subject them to jurisdiction, yet have continued to reward and sponsor terrorism regardless,” Ostrovsky said.
The lawsuit was initially filed under the US Anti-Terrorism Act by Fuld’s widow and other American victims of Palestinian terror, seeking damages from the PA and PLO. However, the case faced a major setback in 2023 when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US federal courts lack jurisdiction over the Palestinian entities, citing concerns over the due process rights of foreign organizations.
Congress attempted to address this legal gap in 2019 with the passage of the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), which sought to ensure that the PA and PLO could be held accountable in American courts if they funded attacks against US citizens or conducted activities within the United States. The brief argues that the PA and PLO have done both, and therefore must face legal consequences.
“It is imperative to hold not only Hamas accountable, but the Palestinian leadership as well,” Ostrovsky said. “Acts of terror, such as the one that claimed the life of Ari Fuld, do not occur in a vacuum. They are the direct result of a pervasive Palestinian infrastructure that indoctrinates hate and incentivizes violence.”
The development coincides with an ongoing ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which included the release last month of Ari Fuld’s killer, Khalil Jabarin. Ari Fuld’s brother, Hillel Fuld, said the family’s “personal grievance and loss was currently amplified” by Jabarin’s release from prison.
Reflecting on the hostage deal that saw Jabarin walk free — financially secure by Palestinian standards due to the pay-for-slay stipends he received while in prison — Fuld acknowledged that the situation was “not black and white.”
“On the one hand this is a terrible, terrible deal from a strategic perspective, and there’s no sugarcoating the fact that letting go of thousands of monsters is just horrible,” he told The Algemeiner. “The flip side is that it’s the most beautiful thing there is to see those families reunited, and it’s a fundamental pillar of Judaism to free our prisoners, our people, and our soldiers need to know that we will do whatever it takes to bring them back if such a thing happens to them.”
Ostrovsky expressed his hope that the Supreme Court would hold Palestinian leaders accountable and prevent them from “rewarding and underwriting murderers of American nationals abroad, like Ari Fuld.”
The court’s decision to take up the case marks a pivotal moment in US counterterrorism law. If the justices rule in favor of the plaintiffs, it could set a precedent allowing American victims of international terrorism to pursue legal claims against foreign entities that support or enable such attacks. The brief was filed on behalf of ILF by the Holtzman Vogel law firm as well as the National Jewish Advocacy Center, with oral arguments expected later in the year.
The post US Supreme Court to Weigh Landmark Terrorism Case Targeting Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Lawmakers Reintroduce Antisemitism Awareness Act
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday reintroduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would mandate the Department of Education to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.
The lawmakers — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Max Miller (R-OH), and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) — reintroduced the legislation after it passed the US House during the last Congress by a vote of 320-91. However, the Senate ultimately opted not to consider the bill in December.
Observers speculated that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate leader, feared exposing potential fractures within the Democratic coalition regarding antisemitism and Israel. Following the onset of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, Democrats have shown inconsistent support for the Jewish state, with some high-profile liberal lawmakers suggesting that Israel’s war against Hamas could be considered a “genocide.” Last November, 17 Democrats voted to implement a partial arms embargo against Israel.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US — adopted the definition of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Dozens of US states have also formally adopted it through law or executive action.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
In a statement, Gottenheimer said on Thursday that the “explosion of antisemitic violence” after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel inspired him to reintroduce the Antisemitism Awareness Act. He added that the legislation would provide state officials and law enforcement a “clear framework” on how to properly address antisemitic violence.
“Since the heinous Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, we have seen an explosion of antisemitic violence and intimidation on college campuses and in communities across New Jersey and the nation. Far too many in our community no longer feel safe in their own homes or classrooms,” Gottheimer said.
Lawler, a Jewish lawmaker and one of the most strident supporters of Israel in Congress, explained his decision to reintroduce the legislation, writing that “no person should feel unsafe, targeted, or ostracized because of their faith — and the Antisemitism Awareness Act will stop it from happening.”
The post US Lawmakers Reintroduce Antisemitism Awareness Act first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Hypocrisy Will Be Exposed’: Israeli Defense Chief Calls Out Spain, Ireland, Others Over Trump’s Gaza Plan
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares (center), Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide (right), and Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin (left) gesture after a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, May 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday warned that the “hypocrisy” of Spain, Ireland, and other European countries hostile to the Jewish state will be exposed if they do not take in Palestinians who choose to leave Gaza, the war-torn enclave that US President Donald Trump has said he intends to rebuild after the population resettles elsewhere for a unknown period of time.
Katz called out several countries in Europe while announcing he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wish to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“The people of Gaza should have the right to freedom of movement and migration, as is customary everywhere in the world,” Katz posted on X/Twitter. I welcome President Trump’s bold initiative, which can create extensive opportunities for those in Gaza who wish to leave, assist them in resettling in host countries, and support long-term reconstruction efforts in a demilitarized, threat-free Gaza after Hamas — an effort that will take many years.”
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air, noting that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which controlled Gaza before the current war and remains the strongest faction there absent the Israeli army, has used residents as “human shields” and and now “holds them hostage.”
Katz’s order came two days after Trump said that the US would take over Gaza and develop it economically after Palestinians are safely resettled elsewhere.
I have instructed the IDF to prepare a plan that will allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to receive them.
Hamas has used the residents of Gaza as human shields, built its terror infrastructure in the heart of the civilian population,…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) February 6, 2025
Global reaction to Trump’s plan was largely negative, with many countries expressing both incredulity and indignation.
Spain, for example, said that Palestinians must stay in Gaza.
“I want to be very clear on this: Gaza is the land of Gazan Palestinians and they must stay in Gaza,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters on Wednesday. “Gaza is part of the future Palestinian state Spain supports and has to coexist guaranteeing the Israeli state’s prosperity and safety.”
Katz took issue with countries that have been vocal critics of Israel and portrayed themselves as staunch defenders of the Palestinians taking such a stance.
“Countries such as Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have falsely accused Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow Gazans to enter their territory,” Katz said in his social media post. “Their hypocrisy will be exposed if they refuse. Meanwhile, countries like Canada, which has a structured immigration program, have previously expressed willingness to take in residents from Gaza.”
Albares rejected Katz’s suggestion that Spain should accept displaced Palestinians.
“Gazans’ land is Gaza and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian state,” Albares said in an interview with Spanish radio station RNE.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Irish Foreign Ministry told the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency on Thursday that Katz’s post was “unhelpful and a source of distraction,” adding, “The objective must be that the people of Palestine return safely to their home.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said during a press conference on Wednesday that Gaza under Hamas rule has been a “failed experiment, adding, “As long as immigration is voluntary and there is a country willing to accept them, can anyone really say it’s immoral or inhumane?”
“עזה זה ניסוי שנכשל” – שר החוץ גדעון סער נואם במליאה: “כל עוד הגירה מתבצעת מרצונו החופשי של אדם, וכל עוד יש מדינה שמוכנה לקלוט את אותו אדם, מישהו יכול להגיד שזה לא מוסרי ולא אנושי?” @gidonsaar pic.twitter.com/VxNy7jSdZC
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) February 5, 2025
Since Hamas started the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, both Spain and Ireland have been fierce critics of the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain launched a diplomatic campaign to curb Israel’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. The US Federal Maritime Commission recently opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Israel.
Spain stopped its own defense companies from shipping arms to Israel in October 2023.
One year later, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the EU to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sanchez’s demand came three days after the Spanish premier urged other countries to stop supplying weapons to the Jewish state.
In Ireland, meanwhile, President Michael D. Higgins used his platform speaking at a Holocaust commemoration last month to launch a tirade against Israel’s military campaign targeting Hamas terrorists, appearing to draw parallels between Israel’s war in Gaza and the Nazi genocide of Jews during the Holocaust.
The speech came against a backdrop of strained Irish-Israeli relations, exacerbated by Ireland’s decision to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its support for redefining genocide in order to secure a conviction against Jerusalem.
In December, Israel announced it was shuttering its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of undermining Israel at international forums and promoting “extreme anti-Israel policies.”
Last month, Israel announced it was shuttering its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of undermining Israel at international forums and promoting “extreme anti-Israel policies.”
In October, Irish leaders called on the EU to “review its trade relations” with Israel after the Israeli parliament passed legislation banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, because of its ties to Hamas.
Spain and Ireland, along with Norway, officially recognized a Palestinian state in May, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
The post ‘Hypocrisy Will Be Exposed’: Israeli Defense Chief Calls Out Spain, Ireland, Others Over Trump’s Gaza Plan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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