0:00:19 > 0:00:21Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25A member of Hitler's inner circle,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29and a leading architect of the extermination of the Jews.
0:00:31 > 0:00:36This is Bettina. Goering was her great uncle.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16Amon Goeth was the sadistic commander
0:01:16 > 0:01:19of the Plaszov concentration camp in Poland.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24He was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29This is his daughter, Monica.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Heinrich Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13Leader of the SS and the Gestapo.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16His great-niece is Catherine Himmler.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Hans Frank was another of Hitler's closest associates.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48As Governor-General of occupied Poland,
0:02:48 > 0:02:52he was responsible for the ghettos and the death camps.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56This is his son, Niklas.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47Rudolf Hoess was commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49His grandson is Rainer Hoess.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04For the descendants of Hitler's most hated henchmen,
0:04:04 > 0:04:06will the past always be present?
0:04:07 > 0:04:09And will the future ever be free of guilt?
0:04:11 > 0:04:13This is the story of how five men and women
0:04:13 > 0:04:17have struggled to free themselves from the sins of their forefathers.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34The Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59Rainer Hoess wants to show a family heirloom to journalist Eldad Beck.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24This fireproof chest, weighing 40 kilos,
0:05:24 > 0:05:29was a gift from Himmler to Rainer's grandfather, Rudolf Hoess.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02As a boy, Rainer was sure the box would reveal yet more horrors
0:06:02 > 0:06:04of his grandfather's reign as the Auschwitz commander.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14But instead, the box contained a series of photographs,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17documenting the private life of the Hoess family.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22Rainer's father and his brother and sisters
0:06:22 > 0:06:24growing up in a grand house,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27separated from the gas chambers by just a few yards.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32This is what he wanted Eldad to see.
0:07:27 > 0:07:32Rainer's father is the younger of the two boys in these pictures.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35He grew up in this idyllic villa, in the grounds of Auschwitz.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30Journalist Eldad Beck is a third-generation holocaust survivor.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27Rainer and Eldad agree to make the journey to Auschwitz together.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33The descendent of a Holocaust survivor and the grandson of a man found guilty of genocide.
0:09:44 > 0:09:49Niklas Frank, a generation older than Rainer, was able to witness
0:09:49 > 0:09:53some of the horrors of Hitler's Holocaust at first hand.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02Childhood for the descendants of the Third Reich
0:11:02 > 0:11:04could never be entirely innocent.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10For many, it was also devoid of any parental love.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18On the train to Auschwitz, where his father spent his early childhood,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Rainer Hoess recalls a cold, distant relationship.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51Niklas Frank's childhood was equally devoid of parental love.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36Monika Goeth was only one-year-old when her father was tried
0:13:36 > 0:13:41and hung for the murder of tens of thousands at Poland's Plaszow concentration camp.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47She was brought up by her mother,
0:13:47 > 0:13:49as if the horrors of Plaszow had never happened.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59She refers to her father by his first name,
0:13:59 > 0:14:01Amon.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11As she grew up, Monica began to question
0:15:11 > 0:15:14this rose-coloured version of her father's history.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16And she confronted her mother.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59Niklas Frank has written books about his parents and what it was like
0:17:59 > 0:18:03growing up as the son of one of the leaders of the Third Reich.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07He describes how his mother loved going shopping in her Mercedes,
0:18:07 > 0:18:09escorted by the SS.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Niklas tours Germany, reading extracts from his work.
0:18:32 > 0:18:38He presents his parents as he continues to see them, as monsters.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42And he is equally tough on himself.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46Here, he describes a day out to visit a concentration camp.
0:19:33 > 0:19:39Katrin Himmler thought she had a good relationship with her father
0:19:39 > 0:19:42until she started to research into the family's past.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45Katrin's family descended from one of the most notorious of all Nazi war criminals.
0:20:46 > 0:20:51Her grandfather was the brother of Gestapo and SS Chief Heinrich Himmler.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51Bettina Goering remembers her grandmother denying
0:21:51 > 0:21:55there had been any wrongdoing by the family at all.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00I was like 11, 12, something like that.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03We saw a documentary about the Holocaust on TV
0:22:03 > 0:22:07and she was there and she'd say, "It's all lies, it's all lies!"
0:22:07 > 0:22:12And we went, like, "How can you say that? Look at all that happened."
0:22:12 > 0:22:17So I remember that there was...big fighting already, yeah, at home.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28So, yeah, that's how those people dealt with it.
0:22:28 > 0:22:33If they would have admitted what happened, I mean, it would have been terrible.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36So best way to go is say it didn't happen at all.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52The night before his arrival in Auschwitz,
0:22:52 > 0:22:57Rainer is tormented by the thought that he might be recognised,
0:22:57 > 0:23:01identified as the grandson of the concentration camp commander.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07As he tried to go to sleep that night, he realised that
0:24:07 > 0:24:12another source of anxiety was the pictures from his grandfather's box.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15In particular, the photograph of the gate, which separated
0:24:15 > 0:24:20the grand home from the horrors of the concentration camp.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45The Gate to Hell began to symbolise for Rainer
0:24:45 > 0:24:49the doorway he was stepping through himself to face
0:24:49 > 0:24:54and to try to separate himself from the full weight of his past.
0:25:09 > 0:25:15Sooner or later, all these sons and daughters of the Third Reich have looked through that gate
0:25:15 > 0:25:18to have the horrors of their forefathers revealed to them.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25For Monika Goeth, the chance came in the form of Manfred,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28the owner of a bar in Munich.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50Amon Goeth was portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the film Schindler's List.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56It was this film that finally brought home to Monika
0:28:56 > 0:28:59the full horror of her father's history.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46Monika left the cinema suffering from shock.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49She now knew what her father had been.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Auschwitz was organised as the first.
0:30:10 > 0:30:15The commandant, the organiser, appointed for this place was Rudolf Hoess.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20Rainer arrived at Auschwitz fully aware of the reputation
0:30:20 > 0:30:22of his grandfather, Rudolf Hoess.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26And he had known about the villa,
0:30:26 > 0:30:30the idyllic home on the edge of hell, for most of his adult life.
0:30:37 > 0:30:42But he was now about to see it for himself for the first time.
0:30:42 > 0:30:43The gate...
0:30:45 > 0:30:47My private hell.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54Rainer is immediately drawn to the gate,
0:30:54 > 0:30:58and looks again at the photographs of his own father as a boy,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01growing up in the shadow of the gas chambers.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05The boy who would grow up still enamoured with the Third Reich.
0:31:05 > 0:31:06RAINFALL
0:31:09 > 0:31:11Horrible, horrible.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16Here, they are murdering people...
0:31:16 > 0:31:18Millions. Childs.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20And they bring their families here and they, you know,
0:31:20 > 0:31:23they grow their families here,
0:31:23 > 0:31:27and, you know, everything is just as normal as it should be.
0:31:28 > 0:31:30Horrifying.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39Entering the villa itself, the guide points out how close
0:31:39 > 0:31:42the family would have been to the gas chambers.
0:31:43 > 0:31:44You see? And small garden.
0:31:47 > 0:31:48And small garden. Yeah?
0:31:50 > 0:31:52Yeah. We go visit inside.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55So we close this...
0:31:55 > 0:31:56Yeah.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00And the small gardens. You see? And walls from camp, you see?
0:32:00 > 0:32:01Yeah.
0:32:01 > 0:32:02- You see?- Yeah.
0:32:05 > 0:32:10So they are so close, the whole family, close to the chambers.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12Yeah.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18Your father grew up with this. With the smell. With the smoke.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22When they pick up the strawberries, my grandmother said,
0:32:22 > 0:32:27"Please wash it first, because it smells," about ashes, you know.
0:33:03 > 0:33:04BELL TOLLS
0:33:29 > 0:33:31BELL TOLLS
0:34:29 > 0:34:34It took Rainer until he was in his mid-40s to make this trip.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37Some of the descendents of the Third Reich don't get this far.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45Others have denied, ignored or turned away.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59For Himmler's great-niece Katrin, the shadow of the Holocaust
0:34:59 > 0:35:02hung more heavily over her when she travelled abroad.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16Good girl.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19For Bettina Goering, on the other hand,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22getting away from Germany was a huge step forward
0:36:22 > 0:36:24on the way to coming to terms with her past.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29She now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
0:36:31 > 0:36:37I haven't lived in Germany for 30... I don't know, some years.
0:36:37 > 0:36:3835 years by now.
0:36:43 > 0:36:49It is easier for me to deal with the past of my family from this great distance.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53It's not our life, you know, we have to digest
0:36:53 > 0:36:58but the life of our grandparents or our parents, whichever.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01And they didn't deal with it or they couldn't deal with it,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04or only to a certain point could they deal with it,
0:37:04 > 0:37:06and then you can absorb all that stuff,
0:37:06 > 0:37:10and now we have to deal with it, like, sort of...
0:37:10 > 0:37:13You have to be almost psychic to deal with it.
0:37:17 > 0:37:22Bettina may have found it easier to face her past since she moved to the United States,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25but how much is that to do with distance,
0:37:25 > 0:37:27and how much to do with isolation?
0:37:28 > 0:37:32We live outside of Santa Fe. Way out, actually.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35I don't think anybody has lived here for good reason,
0:37:35 > 0:37:37because there's very little water.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39We only get our water from rainwater,
0:37:39 > 0:37:41and we're off the grid, that's the other thing.
0:37:41 > 0:37:43There's no electricity.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48So we have to make our own, by solar,
0:37:48 > 0:37:52and luckily, we have a telephone company,
0:37:52 > 0:37:57so we are connected to the world through the internet or the telephone,
0:37:57 > 0:38:01but, yeah, we're very far away from everything.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10And yet isolating herself in a distant corner of a foreign land
0:38:10 > 0:38:14still couldn't excise all the demons of her inheritance.
0:38:14 > 0:38:19For Bettina, there was another, even more drastic, step to take.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22Sterilisation.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24Niklas Frank thinks you should not try to escape your past.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29On the contrary, he works ceaselessly to bring the past
0:39:29 > 0:39:32to the attention of as wide a public as possible.
0:39:57 > 0:40:02Niklas tries to convince his audience that there is evil in the world.
0:40:02 > 0:40:03It exists.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05His readings are a warning.
0:42:42 > 0:42:48Katrin wrote the Himmler Brothers about her grandfather and two great-uncles,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51and she has mixed feelings about its impact.
0:43:19 > 0:43:22Katrin's book about the Himmler brothers
0:43:22 > 0:43:24finally exposed the full horror of the past
0:43:24 > 0:43:27that her family had tried to keep hidden.
0:46:31 > 0:46:32RAINFALL
0:46:36 > 0:46:40In Auschwitz, an emotional Rainer has come face to face
0:46:40 > 0:46:42with his family's dark past,
0:46:42 > 0:46:46but he's about to face an even sterner test.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01He stands before a group of Israeli students,
0:47:01 > 0:47:04unmasked as the grandson of the Auschwitz commandant.
0:47:11 > 0:47:12Ask questions.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15Ask the questions. I think it's...
0:47:15 > 0:47:16It's better?
0:47:16 > 0:47:21Yeah, a little bit nervous also. It's the first time.
0:47:23 > 0:47:24Why are you here?
0:47:24 > 0:47:26Why are you here?
0:47:26 > 0:47:28Warum bin ich hier?
0:47:28 > 0:47:30To...
0:47:32 > 0:47:36To see the horror what my grandfather made,
0:47:36 > 0:47:39and the lies what I have all the years in my family.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43You say lies, what lies?
0:47:43 > 0:47:46The family, my family lies.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51I was a young boy when I met my grandmother,
0:47:51 > 0:47:55and I asked her a couple of times, what's going on with the name?
0:47:55 > 0:47:57But there was no answer.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02I think a lot of these... Yeah. It wasn't spoken in my family.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06Do you feel guilty for what your grandfather did?
0:48:06 > 0:48:08- Yes. - Do you feel responsible?- Yes.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17I feel guilty.
0:48:37 > 0:48:39SHE SOBS
0:48:53 > 0:48:55It's a pleasure for me.
0:48:55 > 0:49:00I feel sorry for that what's going on with his family.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05What would you do now if you can meet your grandpa?
0:49:05 > 0:49:06Oh.
0:49:06 > 0:49:10You want to hear that, what I will do?
0:49:10 > 0:49:12I will kill him myself.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14CHATTERING AND LAUGHTER
0:49:26 > 0:49:28APPLAUSE
0:50:56 > 0:51:00The lives of Hitler's children have all taken different paths
0:51:00 > 0:51:03as they have tried to face up to or free themselves from
0:51:03 > 0:51:05the sins of their forefathers.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10But can they ever truly escape the shadow of the past?
0:56:11 > 0:56:13LAUGHTER
0:57:52 > 0:57:55These children of Hitler can never undo the deeds of their forefathers
0:57:55 > 0:58:01but by confronting their shared past in different ways,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04they have perhaps eased the burden of that guilt
0:58:04 > 0:58:07from the next generation.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23CHILDREN LAUGH
0:58:42 > 0:58:45Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd