She first heard about the Holocaust at the age of 10. “I modeled the heroine of ‘In a German House’ on my mother”

The second Auschwitz trial took place from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965. The accused were members of the crew of the German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The main character of “In a German House” is offered a job as a translator from German into Polish at a court in Frankfurt am Main, and despite the fact that her relatives advise against it, she accepts the job, knowing nothing about Auschwitz at that time. She soon discovers she has a more personal connection to the process than she ever could have imagined. The international cast of the German Disney+ original production includes, among others: Piotr Głowacki and Rafał Maćkowiak, the role of Eva was played by Katharina Stark.

– I don’t speak Polish, but as a translator I had to be fluent in Polish, so I took advantage of language coaching during my preparations. It’s more difficult than I initially thought, because you have to do more than just understand the text to be able to read it, says the actress. – At the same time, I prepared myself substantively, I visited Auschwitz again, where I had been years ago, I read a lot and studied the protocols of the actual trial – she enumerates.

For years, the author had a desire to write about the Holocaust

– When I was ten years old, in 1977, I heard about the Holocaust for the first time. I then watched the 1961 Hollywood film Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster and Maximilian Schell, which was broadcast on television. The film also shows documentary footage about the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, shot by the British, during the courtroom scenes. As a child, I sat in front of the TV, not knowing anything, and at that moment I realized: This is really happening. It really happened, Hesse recalls. Adds:

To this day I am moved and at the same time convinced of the special responsibility we bear as Germans. I have always felt collective guilt, and over the years I have argued a lot with other people of my generation about what we, the grandchildren, have to do with it. I’ve wanted to write novels since I was 10 years old, and as an author, I’ve been looking for ways to tackle this topic.

In 2013, she came across recordings of the Auschwitz trial – over 400 hours of materials were posted on the Internet. – I have to admit – and I think many viewers will feel the same – that I didn’t know about this process at all. And if so, I thought it was the Nuremberg trials. I did not know then that the first trial in this case, initiated not by the victorious nations but by Germans against Germans, took place in 1963. That’s why initially there was very strong public opposition: polls showed that 70 percent of the German people did not want this process, says the writer. – I thought I knew everything about Auschwitz thanks to the research I conducted. However, eyewitness accounts made me realize that this is not the case. Many things are hidden because they are so incomprehensible: it was a man-made hell, says Hess.

In a German house Disney+ promotional materials

The heroine of “In a German House” is modeled on the writer’s mother

Her attention was drawn to the Polish translator who, in a calm and professional tone, translated even the most dramatic fragments of the victims’ interrogations. She admits that when creating Eva, she was modeled on her own mother, who was born in 1942, three years later than her heroine:

Both belong to the so-called generations of children of war. Children who weren’t allowed to ask questions. My parents grew up in this silence after the war. Today we know that past traumas are inherited, sometimes across generations. I think this also gives me, as the granddaughter of perpetrators, a deep-seated motivation to want to write about it.

First, a book was created, then a film adaptation, over which the author supervised. The photos were taken, among others, in Zabrze, Kraków and Katowice, with the support of the Polish Film Institute and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. – The entire production time, i.e. a year and a half of shooting and post-production, almost as long as the process itself, was characterized by mutual respect. I was impressed by the harmonious and productive cooperation between German and Polish employees. I am grateful that we, Germans, were allowed to shoot this material in Krakow. We met many people whose families were affected by the crimes that took place in their neighborhood at that time. There were touching conversations. At the closing party, we cried in each other’s arms and were happy that we were allowed to do this work together, Hess said.