The Zone of Interest(2023)

Plot Summary

• In 1943, Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, lives with his wife Hedwig and their five children in an idyllic home next to the camp. Höss takes the children out to swim and fish, and Hedwig spends time tending the garden. Servants handle chores and the prisoners' belongings are given to the family. Beyond the garden wall, gunshots, shouting and sounds of trains and furnaces are audible. Höss approves the design of a new crematorium, which will soon become operational. Höss notices human remains in the river. He gets his children out of the water and sends a note to camp personnel, chastising them for their carelessness. It is implied that he has sexual relations with prisoners in his office. Meanwhile, a Polish girl who lives nearby sneaks out every night, hiding food at the prisoners' work sites for them to find and eat. Höss receives word that he is being promoted to deputy inspector of all concentration camps and must relocate to Oranienburg, near Berlin. He objects to no avail and withholds the news from Hedwig for several days. Hedwig, deeply attached to their home, begs him to convince his superiors to let her and the children remain. The request is approved and Höss moves. Hedwig's mother comes to stay but is horrified at the sight of the crematorium flames at night and departs, leaving behind a note that an irate Hedwig burns after reading. Months after arriving in Berlin, in recognition of his work, Höss is tasked with heading an operation named after him that will transport 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz to be killed. This allows him to move back to Auschwitz and reunite with his family. He vacantly attends a party celebrating the operation and confesses to Hedwig over the phone that he spent his time there thinking about the most efficient way to gas the room. As Höss leaves his Berlin office descending a stairway, he stops and retches repeatedly and stares into the darkness. In the present day, a group of janitors clean the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Back in 1943, Höss proceeds downstairs.

Storyline

• German-occupied Poland, summer of 1943. More than anything, Hedwig, an indefatigable mother of five, wants to keep her well-organised life as is. After all, she has worked her fingers to the bone to create a fragrant slice of paradise to raise her children, and nothing will change that. If only her husband, the distinguished SS officer and Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess , weren't always burdened by his duties. But perfection is a fleeting illusion. As the oblivious life of the commandant's wife unravels in cloudless bliss, Rudolf finds himself swamped with work, saddled with testing a new ventilation design and overseeing the installation of a highly effective Topf and Sons multi-muffle, non-stop incineration oven system. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that just a hair's breadth away from the peaceful and idyllic Höss household, the unimaginable horrors of the Final Solution were unfolding in full swing. And as noisome fumes and muffled, blood-curdling noises blemish Hedwig's verdant utopia, a question emerges. When evil becomes banal and apathy requires no effort, what separates man from beast? — Nick Riganas For Rudolf Hoss, life is good. He lives in a big house in the country with his wife and five children, whom he dotes on. He has several servants. He has his dream job and is very good at it, leading a very large team and garnering praise from peers and superiors alike. His job? He's the commandant at Auschwitz concentration camp. — grantss In Auschwitz, during the World War II, the commander of the camp Rudolf Höss lives with his wife Hedwig Höss and their five children in a comfortable house side-by-side of the wall of the camp. The dream house has a swimming pool, greenhouse, flowers and vegetable gardens. The noises of screaming, shots, crematory and its smoke do not disturb the family, and every now and then they receive nice clothes, like a fur coat, from the prisoners. Rudolf runs the camp like a factory of deaths, and when he is promoted to supervise the production of other camps, Hedwig asks him to stay in the house with the children. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil