Must-watchWorld War II · Film · 2023
The Zone of Interest
The commandant of Auschwitz and his wife raise their children in a house with a beautiful garden, separated from the camp only by a wall and the sounds that come over it.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 2 places.
Stop 1: Höss family villa, Auschwitz
Key location
Hedwig tends her flowers and hosts her mother while trains, shots and furnaces are heard beyond the garden wall.
Stop 2: SS camp inspectorate, Oranienburg
Promoted away from Auschwitz, Höss works in an office near Berlin until he is chosen to run the deportation of Hungary's Jews.
What really happened
Rudolf Höss commanded Auschwitz from May 1940 to November 1943 and lived with his family in a villa just outside the wall of the main camp. Under his command it grew into the largest killing centre of the Holocaust, where about 1.1 million people were murdered, around a million of them Jews.
Transferred to the SS concentration camp inspectorate at Oranienburg in late 1943, Höss returned in May 1944 to oversee 'Aktion Höss', the murder of Hungarian Jews. He was tried in Poland and hanged beside the old camp in April 1947. The film, loosely based on Martin Amis's novel, uses the real names and the reconstructed house.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- The Zone of Interest
- Directed by
- Jonathan Glazer
- Countries
- United Kingdom, Poland, United States
- Languages
- German, Polish, Yiddish
- Released
- 2023
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Holocaust
- Biography
- True story
