Inheritance | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Directed by | James Moll |
Produced by |
|
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Harris Done |
Edited by | James Moll |
Music by |
|
Production company | Allentown Productions |
Distributed by | PBS |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Inheritance is a 2006 American documentary film about Monika Hertwig , also known as Monika Christiane Knauss, [1] the daughter of Ruth Irene Kalder and Amon Göth, commandant of the Płaszów concentration camp. Monika Hertwig was 10 months old when her father was hanged in 1946 for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. She discovered the truth about him only as a young adult, because her own mother told her in childhood that he was a good man and a war hero. The film centers around her meeting a Holocaust survivor, Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, who was interned at Płaszów and personally knew Göth. [1]
The film was produced for PBS by James Moll, film director, documentary producer and the Founding Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute focusing on testimonies of the Holocaust survivors. In 2009, Inheritance was nominated by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and received an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Interview. [2]
In the documentary, Monika Hertwig travels to Płaszów on the outskirts of Kraków, Poland in an attempt to learn more about her father, SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth, who was portrayed in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List by British actor, Ralph Fiennes. The film had deeply affected Monika, and she claims to have hated Spielberg after watching it. [3] In her search for more information, Hertwig has a meeting at the scene of the former concentration camp with Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, [4] a Holocaust survivor born in Kraków, who was interned at Płaszów, and was forced to work as a maid for Amon Göth. She survived the Holocaust with the help of German businessman Oskar Schindler. More than 60 years after Göth's execution for war crimes, the two women first met there in person.
Amon Göth had two Jewish housemaids who stayed with him in the villa: Helen ("Lena") Hirsch (now Helen Horowitz, living in Israel) and Helen ("Susanna") Sternlicht (now Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, living in the United States). As part of Monika Hertwig's search for more answers, she was given the opportunity to meet the woman from the Kraków Ghetto enslaved and preyed upon by her father during the Holocaust in Poland. [3] Göth abused Helen and shot her boyfriend, a Jewish boy named Adam, dead in front of her.
Göth was a married man, with a wife Anni, and two children in Vienna, [1] when he met Monika's mother Ruth Irene Kalder – a beautician and aspiring actress originally from Gliwice (or Wrocław, sources vary) – through his friend Oskar Schindler in Kraków in 1942 (or early in 1943). She worked as secretary at Schindler's factory at that time. [5] The two had an ostentatious camp affair which Göth's Austrian wife knew nothing about. They partied, played tennis and rode horseback together. Ruth saw him hunting humans (in fact, he killed hundreds), but in a 1983 interview with the BBC she attempted to defend him nevertheless. During this interview, she was shown the transcripts of his war crimes trial. She was dying of emphysema and committed suicide a day later. [1] [6] Monika, who was 37 years old at the time of the interview, thus first heard her mother speak frankly on the subject of her father, to total strangers. [4] [7] Monika Hertwig, Göth's illegitimate child, and his camp maid Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, met for the first time in 2004. [4] Hertwig had requested the meeting with Jonas, but Jonas was hesitant because her memories of the past were so traumatic. She eventually agreed after Hertwig wrote to her: "We have to do it for the murdered people." [4] Jonas shared her sentiment and offered to meet at the Płaszów Memorial Monument in Poland and tour Göth's villa with her for the documentary Inheritance; her husband had committed suicide in 1980 suffering from survivor's guilt. [8] James Moll, the film's director, brought the women together in front of a camera in order to make his film. [4] [9] [7]
Inheritance was completed in 2006. It was produced by James Moll's company Allentown Productions. The primary footage was shot over the course of 13 days on location in Poland, but footage was also shot at Helen's home in New Jersey and on the outskirts of Munich, where Monika lived. [3] The film premiered on June 25, 2006, at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was shown internationally as Der Mördervater in Germany, as Förintelsens arv in Sweden, and as My Father was a Nazi Commandant (TV title) in the UK.
The documentary received critical acclaim and positive reviews from a number of critics, including David Cornelius of DVD Review ("simple but stunning documentary"), William Lee of DVD Verdict ("a remarkable story"), Professor Cynthia Fuchs at PopMatters ("they live with the past, each moment a lesson"), and Michael Atkinson of IFC ("a fascinating dialectic for a number of reasons"). [10]
James Moll said in production notes that he first came in contact with Monika Hertwig in 2003 only to ask her permission to use photographs of Amon Göth for a separate project connected with Schindler’s List video release. He expected the worst but changed his attitude upon hearing her speak. One of her statements became the genesis of Inheritance for him. "I am not my father" she said. Around the same time, Moll was introduced to Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig through Shoah Foundation of the University of Southern California.
Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark and its 1993 film adaptation, Schindler's List, which reflect his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, courage, and dedication in saving his Jewish employees' lives.
Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel Schindler's Ark (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.
Schindler's Ark is a historical fiction published in 1982 by the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. It is based on the true story of Oskar Schindler. The United States edition of the book was titled Schindler's List; it was later reissued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. The novel won the Booker Prize, a literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, and was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 1983.
Płaszów or Kraków-Płaszów was a Nazi concentration camp operated by the SS in Płaszów, a southern suburb of Kraków, in the General Governorate of German-occupied Poland. Most of the prisoners were Polish Jews who were targeted for destruction by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Many prisoners died because of executions, forced labor, and the poor conditions in the camp. The camp was evacuated in January 1945, before the Red Army's liberation of the area on 20 January.
The Schindlerjuden, literally translated from German as "Schindler Jews", were a group of roughly 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. They survived the years of the Nazi regime primarily through the intervention of Schindler, who afforded them protected status as industrial workers at his enamelware factory in Kraków, capital of the General Government, and after 1944, in an armaments factory in occupied Czechoslovakia. There, they avoided being sent to death camps and survived the genocide. Schindler expended his personal fortune made as an industrialist to save the Schindlerjuden.
Itzhak Stern was a Polish Jew and a Holocaust survivor, who worked for Sudeten-German industrialist Oskar Schindler and assisted him in his rescue activities during the Holocaust. After World War II, Stern moved to Israel.
Natalia Karp was a Polish concert pianist and Holocaust survivor.
James Moll is an American director and producer of film documentaries and television documentaries. His documentary work has earned him an Academy Award, two Emmys, and a Grammy. Moll's production company, Allentown Productions Inc., has been based at Universal Studios since 1994, primarily producing non-fiction film and television projects. Moll also serves on the executive committee of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and serves as chair of the documentary award for the Directors Guild of America.
Leopold Rosner was a Polish-born Australian musician. Rosner, who was Jewish, survived the Holocaust in Nazi concentration camps during World War II by playing his accordion for Nazi officials. This earned the attention of Oskar Schindler, who saved his life by having him placed on his famous list. His story became known after Australian author Thomas Keneally's 1982 novel, Schindler's Ark, was adapted into Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film, Schindler's List. He appeared in the epilogue of the film at the Schindler's grave on Mount Zion.
Julius Madritsch was a Viennese Austrian businessman who helped to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust.
Amon Leopold Göth was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II.
Mieczysław "Mietek" Pemper was a Polish-born German Holocaust survivor. Pemper helped compile and type Oskar Schindler's now-famous list, which saved 1,200 people from being killed in the Holocaust during World War II.
Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig was a Polish Holocaust survivor who was interned during World War II at the Płaszów concentration camp where she was forced to work as a maid for SS camp commandant Amon Göth.
Hitler's Children is an Israeli-German 2011 documentary film directed by Chanoch Zeevi that portrays how relatives of Adolf Hitler's inner circle deal with the burden of that relationship and the identification of their surnames with the Holocaust. They describe the conflicted feelings of guilt and responsibility they carry with them in their daily lives and the disparate reactions of their siblings and other family members.
Leon Leyson was a Polish-American Holocaust survivor and one of the youngest Schindlerjuden, Jews saved by Oskar Schindler. His posthumously published memoir, The Boy on the Wooden Box- How the impossible became the possible, on Schindler's List details his extraordinary survival during the dark times of the dreaded Holocaust.
Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory is a former metal item factory in Kraków. It now hosts two museums: the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków, on the former workshops, and a branch of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, situated at ul. Lipowa 4 in the district of Zabłocie, in the administrative building of the former enamel factory known as Oskar Schindler's Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (DEF), as seen in the film Schindler's List. Operating here before DEF was the first Malopolska factory of enamelware and metal products limited liability company, instituted in March 1937.
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past is a memoir by German writer Jennifer Teege. It covers her discovery that her grandfather was Amon Göth, nicknamed the "Butcher of Płaszów" and infamously depicted in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List. Teege was adopted and learned about her family history after reading a biography of her biological mother, Monika Hertwig.
Jennifer Teege is a German writer. Her maternal grandfather was Austrian SS Nazi concentration camp commander and war criminal Amon Göth. Her 2015 book My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past was a New York Times bestseller.
Diana Reiter, also known as Diana Reiterówna, was a Polish-Jewish architect. A graduate of Lviv Polytechnic, she was one of the first female architects in Kraków. In 1943, she was killed at the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Goth, Göth or Góth is a surname of German and Hungarian origin.
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)Interview also available as: an mp3 file – 8.17 MB
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)