In the spring of 2019, my family visited the grounds of Dachau, which was one of the first concentration camps used by Nazi Germany during the Second World War—now a memorial site dedicated to remembering the experiences of the thousands who were persecuted there. It was an eerie, heart-wrenching experience. While I was familiar with Holocaust history, being on the very site where such horrific abuse and hate were enacted was an overwhelming and powerful experience.
A still from the movie “The Zone of Interest.” (A24)
One of the things I was compelled by during this visit was the village right outside of Dachau’s walls. We were informed that the people there were made to believe that the prisoners were criminals—insane, murderous and deplorable. Thus, these villagers lived quiet lives right outside of the model concentration camp of World War II, unaware of what was going on inside, and sure that the prisoners were deserving of incarceration.
In Steven Ambrose’s historical narrative “Band of Brothers,” he recounts the liberation of a different concentration camp in Germany. One of the military leaders overseeing the liberation conscripted local men to bury the dead prisoners, and according to the testimony of those interviewed by Ambrose, most of these men seemed horrified, surprised and sickened to see what had happened behind the closed walls just outside of their town. These stories made me wonder: How could people live right outside of concentration camps without knowing or caring about what happened inside?
When I saw the trailer for A24’s “Zone of Interest,” I was immediately intrigued. This film, directed by Jonathan Glazer and based on the novel of the same title by Martin Amis, focuses on the idea above by capturing an extreme juxtaposition: a beautiful property right outside of Auschwitz, where the Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss enjoys life with his family.
According to reviews, the film never shows us anything inside the camp walls, though the reality of its presence is certainly hard to miss. The haunted, twisted reality of the Höss’ life cannot be missed; while Rudolf knows (and is responsible for) the inner workings of Auschwitz, he gets to come home from “work” to enjoy an idyllic life at his beautiful home. While the gas chambers, abuse and slave labor kill thousands of people everyday, destroying children’s innocence and lives, the Höss family children are blissfully unaware, playing in a garden fertilized by the ashes of those killed just beyond the property walls.
I was disappointed to discover that this film is still in theaters (if you’re anything like me, going to the theaters during the semester is an unlikely event). But I do anticipate its release because there are so many questions that the trailers beg: How much does the family (outside of Rudolf) know? How can such a beautiful place be in proximity with the horrors of the Holocaust?
The tone of the trailer clearly conveys the disgusting existence of a community complicit in their neighbors’ destruction and torture—one where reality is twisted and truth is hidden under the intoxicating guise of color, flowers and lies.
Most movies and books about the Holocaust demonstrate the horror by showing us the graphic reality of what happened. “The Zone of Interest'' invites a new perspective where we see not the inner brutality of a concentration camp but the sickness of delusion right outside its doors.