Kai was in sixth grade history class when the teacher mentioned a name that caught his attention: Rudolf Höss, the man in charge of supervising the largest concentration and extermination center of World War II, had the same last name.
“Obviously, I started paying attention because it sounded familiar,” Kai Höss told the show. Outlook from the BBC. “I realized it was our last name, with the same spelling as it appears on my birth certificate.”
But what the young man never expected was that his insight would lead him to discover the most terrible of family secrets: “‘Yes,’ my mother told me, ‘he is your grandfather.'”
According to testimonies from Rudolf Höss himself during the historic Nuremberg trials – in which a large part of the Nazi leadership was tried for their actions during the Holocaust -, More than 1,130,000 people, mostly European Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz camp..
And Kai had just discovered that he was a direct descendant of the main architect of the massacre.
“It was shocking, incredible. “Who wants to have such a person as their grandfather?”
Today, after a life that took him from an ambitious hotel manager to an evangelical pastor in his native Germany, Kai Höss remembers how that revelation as a teenager changed his life, and talks about the moment he was finally able to confront the past. with his father.
A normal childhood
Kai says he had a good childhood, playing in the big yard of his parents’ house, and says there was never any mention of fascism or Nazi ideology in his home.
“In fact, My father was always very gentle, a very quiet person. You had to work hard to get a smile or a yes or no from him.“.
He made a good combination with his mother, whom he described as “very enterprising, always keeping good impressions in the town, a small place where everyone knows you.”
Kai says that it was precisely because of the silent nature of his father, Hans Jürgen Höss, that he never found out about his past, nor about his childhood living near an extermination center.
“I think I only heard him say once that he remembered something about when Uncle Heiney, that is, Heinrich Himmler – commander of the Nazi forces – had come from Berlin to bring him some toys for Christmas.“.
“I don’t know how much I remembered, that is, [mi papá] I was 6 or 7 years old when all this happened.”
The few mentions that Hans made to Kai about his grandfather tended to be those of a present and loving father: “My dad had good experiences with his father; For example, they sailed in a boat on the river, and that was what he shared with us.”
That was why Kai never imagined what he was going to find when he started reading the copy of his grandfather’s memoirs that his mother kept at home.
Memories of Auschwitz
While awaiting execution – he would be hanged next to the Auschwitz I crematorium in April 1947 – Rudolph Höss wrote his autobiography.
In his memoirs, Höss described in an almost methodical style the horrors he was responsible for during the four years he was in Auschwitz:
We discussed the ways and methods of extermination.
It could only be achieved through gas, since it would have been absolutely impossible to get rid of the large numbers of people that were expected with shots.and it would have been a very heavy burden for the SS men (Nazi security forces) in charge of doing so, particularly due to the presence of women and children among the victims..
After Kai Höss learned that he was the grandson of the commandant of Auschwitz, he found the copy of his grandfather’s memoirs that his mother had kept for years.
“I think she wanted to know. The story is that not even she knew. They met, they had me, and my dad never told him who he was until an aunt read an article about him in a magazine and asked my mom, ‘Isn’t that your husband?'”
Kai says that although his father told his mother the truth, he never openly discussed what he found embarrassing. That’s why when Kai found the book, his mother encouraged him to read it.
“It broke my heart when I read his statements and the things he says in such a cold and clinical way”remember.
“When people do things, they tend to justify them and you can justify practically anything, right? And he justified it.”
Emotions flooded Kai: “Shame, guilt, disbelief. “It was difficult for me to process that I am related to someone who did something like that, and at an age that is already difficult in itself, such as adolescence.”
The commander’s grandson
As if the confusion wasn’t enough in Kai’s young life, shortly after learning the truth about his family, his parents decided to divorce.
“It was a very complicated divorce,” Kai remembers, “with restraining orders and all that. And we as children were involved in that situation. Without this, maybe we would have talked things over, but the constant tension between my parents overshadowed everything.”
That murky past, in addition to a promising career in the hotel industry, kept Kai away from Germany for more than 30 years.
He married, traveled the world and lived in the US for a few years, always avoiding returning to the home that no longer existed.
“It had to do with my parents’ divorce and that lack of home. “So many things burned down and my relationship with my mom was very difficult, and I didn’t want to bring my family into this whole broken family dynamic.”
During those 30 years, Kai never spoke to his father.
“After the divorce, my dad just disappeared. The reason is that he betrayed my mother, he had someone else. The name was changed, and it was almost 30 years later when we returned to Germany that the phone rang.
“I didn’t recognize the number. I asked who he was and he said ‘I’m your dad.'”
Kai says that as difficult as it was to find out what had happened all that time, hearing from his father again was an opportunity he wanted to take advantage of.
“When he called me, I wanted to be upset with this man. I wanted to say ‘how much can you love us if you spend 30 years without communicating?’ But he had found a new wife, and they had children and a new family.
“I felt bad, but I thought, you know? He’s my dad, and I love him. “He’s an old man now, he’s in his 80s, let’s build a relationship.”
Return to Auschwitz
Seeking to confront his past, Kai and his 87-year-old father, Hans Jürgen Höss, decided to be part of the documentary “The Commander’s Shadow” and tell their story.
In the feature film, which premiered at the Sedona Film Festival, The two Hösses confront the intergenerational trauma caused by Rudolf’s actions when they meet one of the Auschwitz victims..
“The most powerful thing for me, what touched my heart, was meeting this woman, at 90 years old, who suffered in the concentration camp, and having her be in our house and have coffee with us and see her smile.
“Realize that there is reconciliation, understanding, forgiveness, love. Yes, it can be achieved.”
Additionally, Kai and Hans visited Auschwitz.
“That week I was heartbroken. I burst into tears every day at different times. See this factory, this thing, that my grandfather created to exterminate people.
“We recorded on platforms where trains arrived with Jews from all over Europe, they were moved like cattle to Auschwitz, some died due to the conditions of the trip.
“It is one of the deepest marks that has remained in my heart.”
Even more painful was the experience of Hans, who read extracts from his father’s book for the first time and visited the site where he was taken to the gallows, condemned for his crimes against humanity.
“You could see him in tears,” Kai recalls of his father during the visit to Auschwitz.
“He was standing there silently with his walker and said something like ‘my father got his just punishment for his crimes.’”.
Kai says he has already had conversations about his grandfather’s crimes with his two children, ages 12 and 7, and hopes to keep the conversation open with them in the future, because he believes it is important to keep the Holocaust experience alive to prevent it from being repeated. repeat.
“We have to get kids to leave class and be so moved that they leave saying, ‘It’s the saddest thing, the most terrible thing, we have to do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens again.’“.
*This story is adapted from an interview by Jo Fidgen and produced by Julian Siddle for the BBC’s Outlook programme. If you want to hear the original version in English, you can find it here.
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