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My Nazi Legacy

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Imagine what it must be like

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to grow up as the child of a mass murderer.

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To live with such a parent must impose the most terrible of burdens.

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My name is Niklas Frank.

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I am born 9th of March, 1939.

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This is not special, special is that I'm by chance

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the son of Hans Frank.

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He was politically responsible for all the ghettos

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and for the concentration camps on the soil of Poland.

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I was researching a book on the Nuremberg trial

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when I met Niklas Frank,

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and later he introduced me to Horst von Wachter.

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I was born in Vienna on 14th April, 1939.

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So I'm still a child of peace.

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It was before the war.

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As gratitude towards the Nazi party,

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my mother proposed the name of Horst,

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after Horst Wessel who was a prominent figure

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from the first years of the Nazi party.

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Right from the beginning, my father, he was a complete Nazi.

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The material was all the more relevant to me

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because of my own family background.

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I'm Jewish and my family was very directly affected

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by the actions of these men.

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I'm curious about details and people.

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I want to know why things happened, why people act as they do,

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how they can engage in mass killing and then spend an evening with their families.

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Yet, watching these images felt dirty,

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as though I was complicit in a voyeuristic sort of way,

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looking on the inside of horror.

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Mr President, members of the court, uh, it's an honour...

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'My day job is working as an international lawyer

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'on cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity,

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'but it was while working on my book

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'that I was commissioned to write an article about Horst von Wachter.'

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I came with a tremendous anxiety

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because I just didn't know what to expect,

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and because of this connection with the past.

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Here was a man who might have met Hitler.

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I was meeting someone who was directly connected,

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not just with abstract history

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but with a deep part of my family's life.

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How did you find this house?

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Here, there was a colony of artists in the '60s, you know.

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-Living in the schloss?

-Yeah, yeah.

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It was a secret place, you know,

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-where they came and made their festivities.

-Yeah.

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I love this staircase.

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Everything has a meaning, you know.

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Positions of the doors for elements, for directions.

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This room is devoted to Trismegistus,

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who's the god of wisdom, god of numbers.

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-22 windows.

-No, that...

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-No, 16 windows.

-There are 16, then you have four doors.

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-Yeah.

-And you have two chimneys, you know.

-Yeah.

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And 22 is the number of the letters

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in the Hebrew alphabet.

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This is really very important.

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The Hebrew thing keeps coming back.

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Yes, it is Hebrew.

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Here you see we have two lovers, you know.

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Are they the same lovers or are they different lovers?

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No, they are different. They are very different, you know.

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'I've come to talk with him about

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'what his father got up to during the Second World War,

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'and he just wanted to talk about stones and rocks and buildings,

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'about history going back millennia, not just 70 years.'

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You can see here the two putti, they are kissing each other, you know.

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You told me that this building was your father's gift to you.

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-Oh, yes.

-What did you mean by that?

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When you said that to me, what did you mean by that?

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This has to do with my youth

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and how I dropped out of normality because of my father.

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Because my normality was...

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That was normality between... until 1945

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when I was six years,

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and that was practically destroyed, you know,

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by this whole, by the war, more or less,

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but I see it now like this.

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Because everything was finished, you know,

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and I was raised like a... like a young Nazi boy

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and that everything was right and things like that,

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and from one day to the other everything was gone, you know,

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and that was... I was really shocked.

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I mean, I feel it today,

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so that's why I'm here, you know, more or less.

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MUSIC: Piano Sonata No 8 by Ludwig van Beethoven

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I do remember moments in summertime on the lake.

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I remember my...sixth birthday

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which was on 14th of April, 1945.

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It's not only that the regime broke down

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but everything around us broke down.

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The normality broke down for us, for me,

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and I was just... I remember when I was sitting on this...veranda

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overlooking...the lake,

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and we had this small birthday party

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and then I was alone and just thought that

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I should remember this moment for all my life.

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You had this feeling that everything is finished,

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there is no future for you

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and whatever you do it has no sense, you know.

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What I remember now is the... British and American war planes.

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You saw these huge masses of planes over you

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and sometimes they... Yes, I remember. Yes.

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I remember that they dropped...

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They dropped the bombs in the lake, you know.

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When they had too much bombs

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or they just wanted to get rid of the bombs,

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they dropped it into the lake and...

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And the whole, uh... The whole house started to shiver, you know.

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'Within an hour of sitting in his room,

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'he'd taken out the family albums and we were going through pages

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'of summer holidays and winter holidays,

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'interspersed with pictures of Dachau,

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'images of AH, Adolf Hitler,

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'and all that happened in the first two hours that I met Horst.'

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And here we have him on the water,

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Austrian rowing champion on the Danube.

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Yes.

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-Next album.

-As the years move on.

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'Otto von Wachter played a central role in the murder

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'of the Austrian Chancellor by the Nazis in 1934.

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'As early as that he was a leading Austrian Nazi.'

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And he's gone from being a complete outsider...

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-Yeah, into the government.

-Into the government.

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So he was named SS-Oberfuhrer on Kristallnacht.

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Yeah, when this... This was Kristallnacht.

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That's Kristallnacht, yeah.

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Yeah, I must check it but then when you say it...

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A year later he's now been upgraded and he's a Brigadefuhrer...

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That's already in Krakow here.

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-I recognize that, that's...

-Yeah, that's my mother.

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That's your mother sitting with Niklas's mother?

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-Yeah, Brigitte Frank.

-So this must be in the Wawel.

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-Yes.

-In the Wawel castle.

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And you see, she was quite a good friend to Brigitte Frank.

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'I was transported back 70 years to the heart of an appalling regime

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'but Horst was looking at these images with a different eye from mine.

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'I see a man who has probably been responsible

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'for the killing of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.

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'Horst looks at the same photographs

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'and he sees a beloved father playing with the children

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'and he's thinking that was family life.'

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-More skiing photos.

-Yes.

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And this... And now we're in Lemberg.

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Now we're in Lemberg.

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What is he now?

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-The Governor of Galicia.

-Yes.

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So they've just occupied it. Here he is, they've just occupied it,

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they are moving east, this is Soviet propaganda,

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-and is that your father?

-Yes.

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-There was a little photograph.

-Yeah, yeah of the... With the Jews.

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Yeah.

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-That was a visit to Warsaw.

-A visit to Warsaw.

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The eye's attention is caught by the little girl

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-who is in the middle and...

-Wait...

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the light is not so good here.

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-So your father?

-Yeah.

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-And this is Himmler.

-Yeah.

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It is in '43, must be.

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-His Galician SS Division.

-Yeah.

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That was his biggest effort there

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and because it built up this division

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with the help of the Ukrainians.

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And that's... That's not you?

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That is me, yes, that's me.

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You went to stay in the Franks' summer house?

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I must be sitting behind there.

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You're sitting there. That's you over there.

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Yeah, it must be.

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-I think that's Niklas...

-Yes, it could be.

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..in the Schoberhof.

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The very first picture I have in mind I was being washed by my nurse.

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It was my first memory, it was here in Schoberhof.

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Our rooms were on the back side, it's now torn down.

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The building, it became more and more a ruin

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but now it really tore myself apart

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when I saw they are rebuilding it in a new way,

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that really hurts.

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-Because?

-Because it's my home.

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We always had our holidays here,

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we loved the mountains around here, skiing.

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# O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

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# Du kannst mir sehr gefallen

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# Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit

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# Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!

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# O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

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# Du kannst mir sehr gefallen! #

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My beloved nurse Hilda, she was always with us.

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Everything what is human with me,

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came from Hilda, not from my mother.

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And when my mother came back for instance and said,

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"Oh, Hilda, go away, now I am with my children.

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"You have a free day off."

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And after 20 minutes she said, "No, no, Hilda, you have to stay.

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"I can't do it with the children, I am too nervous.

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"Please keep the children with you."

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And she was away with her old Mercedes.

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Because I have some memories also of Poland

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and she filled in what was left.

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For instance, by visiting the Krakow ghetto.

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I only had some, few...

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And she said where it was, when it was and what happened.

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-Did she accompany you?

-Yes, she was with me.

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I was never alone as a little child in the Krakow ghetto.

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Together with my mother.

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What did you... I mean, what did you see in the Krakow ghetto?

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The only thing I remember was

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that I was standing inside my Mercedes car, on the back side,

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and there were a lot of sad people around me outside.

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And there were some young people of my age,

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children.

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And to one of them I took out my tongue,

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and he went away very sadly looking,

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and so I was the winner and I was laughing aloud.

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But Hilda took me back and was silent besides me,

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showing me that was not correct.

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Your mother accompanied you on that trip?

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Yes, but she was outside of the car shopping in the ghetto.

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What shopping was there in the ghetto? I mean the imagination...

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Furs, furs. She was always looking for furs.

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When you say shopping, you meaning shopping or stealing?

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She said "surprises," I would say,

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and everybody who was selling to her would say,

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"Oh, that's the wife of the Governor-General. I'm lucky I will survive."

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Yeah, and did your father accompany you on those?

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No, never.

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They hated each other.

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The marriage was gone and my father wanted a divorce,

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my mother fought all the way up to Hitler

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and Hitler forbade my father the divorce till after the war.

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She... She actually contacted Hitler?

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Yes, by letter. She didn't come personally to him

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but she wrote a letter, a letter including a picture of her and the five children.

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And the consequence of that was that Hitler did what?

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-Hitler instructed...

-He forbade.

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Hitler forbade Frank the divorce till after the war.

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And why did your father just not ignore that?

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He loved Hitler more than his family.

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IN GERMAN:

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My father, he wrote a letter and wrote, uh,

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"I am seeing mountains of corpses,

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"I am going into the dark, please don't accompany me,

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"give me the divorce."

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He's using the Final Solution to persuade Brigitte

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to give him a divorce and she says no.

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By the way, if she would have said yes,

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we would still keep the show of...

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Niklas and Horst, two men I've come to know

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whose fathers were very senior in the Nazi hierarchy.

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Hans Frank started as Hitler's personal lawyer

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and then rose to be Governor-General of occupied Poland.

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Otto von Wachter was only a notch or two down,

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he was one of Hans Frank's deputies.

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First the Governor of Krakow, then the Governor of District Galicia.

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What a beautiful castle,

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full of criminals at this time.

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Everybody of those servants, of those German staff of the government

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who worked also here, they knew exactly

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that no day passes by

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that we have not committed the most horrible crimes.

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My father always wanted to please Hitler

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so he gave a shit about... really about the fate of the Jews

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or about the fate of the Polish people.

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Ah, here it is.

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For me, it was the most special room in the whole of the Wawel

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because it was a bath I have never seen before or afterwards.

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I always, it was one of my dreams to have a bath like this,

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going down two steps

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but this was the only gentle experience I had with my father.

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I came in through this door, very small,

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and my father was standing here shaving

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and he saw me

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and gave a little bit of his shaving foam onto my nose

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and that was the only gentle moment between him and me which I remember.

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And you can see that I remember

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how much I was longing for the love of my father,

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otherwise it's quite a normal procedure.

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But it burned my soul, it was the only gentle moment.

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Wonderful bathroom.

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Why do you think your father had so little affection for you?

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Because he didn't... didn't think that I am his son

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but the son of his best friend Karl Lasch.

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Who was your mother's lover?

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At the time...she could have conceived.

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But later I think he believed my mother that I am his son.

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He was five to ten times better educated, for instance, than me.

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He knew Goethe's Faust by heart

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and also most of the plays of Shakespeare.

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As if it was Hans Frank's own procession, huh?

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Unbelievable.

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I am really happy that this painting has survived

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and is back where it belongs to.

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'Leonardo Da Vinci's portrait of Cecilia Gallerani

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'was one of the most famous paintings in the world.

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'Hans Frank took it from a Polish museum

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'created by the Czartoryski family

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'and kept it with him throughout the war.'

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Do you remember that?

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Yes, that I remember because I thought it was a rat.

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-Ermine.

-Ermine.

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It's the Lady with Ermine,

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and the painter Leonardo Da Vinci

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described it as a painting that should instil

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in any person who looked at it feelings of love.

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Not to my father.

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In a stolen castle, in a stolen country, it makes me really angry.

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And there's no sense of pride on your part

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that in some way...

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..it could be said that your father's actions did protect this work?

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No, no.

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I could not forgive him, he was bought up as a catholic

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and he studied law in the Weimar democracy.

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So he knew by heart what was right, what was wrong.

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And he went on and on till, to the gallows.

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Because I think he was too much of a coward.

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He knew that he's committing crimes...

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..and...he never had the bravery to say,

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"OK, Mr Hitler, that's it."

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As a family of one of the defendants,

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we have got the chance to visit our father in Nuremberg.

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First thing what I saw was Mr Hermann Goering on the opposite side,

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so I was sitting, looking at my father behind the window,

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"Hi. Nicki, it's a pleasure to see you,

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"soon we will celebrate a really great Christmas together at Schoberhof."

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And I was thinking, "Why is he lying?

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"Why is he lying? He knows that he will be hanged."

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And I was unbelievably disappointed.

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My father, he was staying four years in the mountains, always hidden.

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My mother brought him food and equipment for the winter, for the summer and so on.

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My mother was of course still a Nazi lady,

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so when the American soldiers moved into our house

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they asked my mother, "Are you a Nazi?"

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And my mother said, "Yes, I am Nazi."

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And then they said, "Oh, you're the first person we met who said she is a Nazi."

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-So...

-And she was proud?

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Yes, of course she was proud.

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She was convinced that my father was right and did the right things,

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never one word that she spoke bad about him.

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Then he came to live with us, I think it was two weeks or so

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and she said to us smaller children,

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that's an uncle from South America or whatever.

0:25:300:25:35

He had a little moustache

0:25:350:25:38

and...he came up to see us

0:25:380:25:41

when we were sleeping in our beds,

0:25:410:25:45

I remember.

0:25:450:25:47

And that is the only contact with my father I can remember.

0:25:470:25:51

He had good connections to the Vatican.

0:25:520:25:55

He found refuge in some religious institution there

0:25:550:26:00

and...he died very quick there.

0:26:000:26:03

-Oh, my God.

-Here she is,

0:26:100:26:13

the queen of Poland, my mother.

0:26:130:26:16

It was painted in 1935.

0:26:170:26:20

-Did they still love each other then?

-Yes.

0:26:200:26:23

Or some adultery, but not so heavy ones, lighter.

0:26:230:26:29

And when it was over, it was a big glory of the Frank family,

0:26:290:26:34

she said, "OK, now it's over.

0:26:340:26:37

"Now I have to work my ass off to nourish these children,"

0:26:370:26:41

and she died at the age of 63, completely worn out.

0:26:410:26:46

A very clear picture about the Frank family and what I have done

0:26:480:26:54

and what they have connected to when I saw the first pictures,

0:26:540:26:58

photographs in the newspapers.

0:26:580:27:01

There I saw mountains of corpses

0:27:010:27:04

and also children of my age then.

0:27:040:27:07

And it was always written, underlined, Poland.

0:27:070:27:12

And what happened to me is that, you really get the shock...

0:27:140:27:18

..because I always thought Poland is ours.

0:27:200:27:23

Of course I felt guilty because of my father somehow.

0:27:430:27:47

Of course, because you knew them.

0:27:470:27:50

More or less, it started all this horrible things,

0:27:500:27:55

came into public what happened, and it was not...

0:27:550:27:59

After immediately...

0:27:590:28:01

Immediately after the war there was...

0:28:010:28:04

Nobody talk about this.

0:28:040:28:07

Talked and wrote.

0:28:070:28:09

The difficulties started later.

0:28:090:28:12

My mother wanted me to become a lawyer, of course,

0:28:130:28:17

like my father.

0:28:170:28:19

She was very disappointed because when I said,

0:28:190:28:22

"No, finished. I don't study any more. I go into the woods. Bye-bye, Mother."

0:28:220:28:28

And of course she was very shocked.

0:28:280:28:31

Then she got this professor friend and this friend said to me,

0:28:310:28:35

"Oh, Horst, you don't have to do anything,

0:28:350:28:38

"you will be professor/doctor.

0:28:380:28:39

"You just have to inscribe in Salzburg at the university,"

0:28:390:28:44

and there you had all these friends of my father's,

0:28:440:28:47

and, well, of course I refused this thing

0:28:470:28:51

and I said, "I must find my own way."

0:28:510:28:55

I was closing up and I was very insecure.

0:28:560:29:00

At this certain moment I said to my friend,

0:29:000:29:03

that I want to serve somebody, I want to... Like a servant.

0:29:030:29:08

I really, I have to be of any use to somebody.

0:29:080:29:14

And then they said, "Oh, I know a crazy painter, he needs somebody."

0:29:140:29:19

When I saw Hundertwasser the first time,

0:29:230:29:26

I knew that he would need me

0:29:260:29:28

and I would go along with him quite well

0:29:280:29:31

because he was also a shy person like me,

0:29:310:29:34

and somehow that he was Jewish,

0:29:340:29:36

that was of course very good for my feelings too.

0:29:360:29:39

Then I went sailing the boat to New Zealand, that was his new paradise.

0:29:410:29:47

Perhaps, also with you because you were Jewish.

0:29:530:29:57

Somehow this being Jewish is something very attractive for me.

0:29:570:30:03

And in the beginning when I met Hundertwasser...

0:30:030:30:07

..his mother was afraid of me of course,

0:30:080:30:11

because she knew who my father was.

0:30:110:30:16

And she was, uh...

0:30:160:30:20

..with all her experiences in the war,

0:30:220:30:25

when she had to run around at the start of it.

0:30:250:30:28

The question of the historical responsibility of my father

0:30:300:30:35

is a very complex one,

0:30:350:30:36

but the racial theory of Germans being superman

0:30:360:30:42

and the others being untermenschen,

0:30:420:30:44

my father was against this right from the beginning.

0:30:440:30:48

He was absolutely somebody

0:30:490:30:52

who wanted to do something good,

0:30:520:30:54

and he wanted to get something moving

0:30:540:30:58

and find some solution about all these problems.

0:30:580:31:01

Who arose after the first war and tried...

0:31:010:31:06

He was a complete optimist.

0:31:060:31:09

My father really had deserved to die at the gallows

0:31:100:31:16

for what he has done, he deserved it.

0:31:160:31:19

Besides photos of my beloved family...

0:31:210:31:25

..I always wear with me

0:31:260:31:30

the last picture of my father when he was... After he was hanged.

0:31:300:31:34

He has a swollen eye so maybe he crashed against the trap door.

0:31:350:31:41

On the one hand...

0:31:440:31:45

..yeah, to be sure that he's really dead,

0:31:470:31:52

but on the other hand, and this is what haunts me all my life,

0:31:520:31:57

the Germans know exactly what can happen

0:31:570:32:03

if you are losing civil courage,

0:32:030:32:07

if you are losing democracy,

0:32:070:32:09

it leads to...

0:32:090:32:11

Can lead to extermination camps.

0:32:130:32:17

So we know this by heart because we have done it, the Germans.

0:32:170:32:23

And people of his merciless...

0:32:230:32:27

..kind of living and killing are still alive in Germany.

0:32:280:32:34

The article I had written for the Financial Times

0:32:380:32:40

attracted a lot of interest.

0:32:400:32:41

The newspaper offered to stage a public event

0:32:410:32:44

at which Horst and Niklas could present their views side by side

0:32:440:32:47

and I was surprised when they both agreed.

0:32:470:32:50

THEY SPEAK IN GERMAN

0:32:500:32:51

The two men had much in common with similar backgrounds,

0:32:560:32:59

yet seeing each on his own, I had become acutely aware

0:32:590:33:02

that they had very different attitudes to their fathers.

0:33:020:33:04

Niklas is a more polished and prepared individual.

0:33:100:33:13

Horst has just opened himself up,

0:33:130:33:15

he's never been through anything like this.

0:33:150:33:18

He's never had this kind of scrutiny.

0:33:180:33:20

Horst, let's... Let's turn to you.

0:33:200:33:23

May I first introduce, hmm, have some words?

0:33:230:33:26

Absolutely. Please do.

0:33:260:33:28

Yes, I am very grateful that I can be here.

0:33:280:33:31

That kind of listening and hearing would be impossible in Austria,

0:33:310:33:37

there would be... Well, we don't know anything about Nazis

0:33:370:33:41

and we don't want to know anything and so...

0:33:410:33:44

I'd come to learn that Niklas didn't like to miss any opportunity

0:33:440:33:48

to attack his father and to do so publicly.

0:33:480:33:51

But Horst on the other hand, it was less clear to me

0:33:510:33:53

why he would want to expose himself publicly.

0:33:530:33:56

Both of our fathers were heavily involved, heavily.

0:33:580:34:04

You told me once I should make peace with my father.

0:34:050:34:09

I have peace with my father because I acknowledged his crimes

0:34:090:34:14

and so I could lead a really good life.

0:34:140:34:18

And you, you're struggling for what?

0:34:180:34:21

To fight also against your father.

0:34:210:34:24

Sorry, dear friend.

0:34:240:34:26

Well, I think I see it different.

0:34:280:34:31

I see the structure of the whole annihilation of Jews

0:34:310:34:34

and what happens, they are quite different.

0:34:340:34:38

And I didn't look for peace,

0:34:380:34:41

it's just I felt it's my duty as a son

0:34:410:34:44

to put things straight with my father

0:34:440:34:47

and I see who was really responsible.

0:34:470:34:50

But it doesn't make your father innocent

0:34:500:34:52

if he's not quite responsible.

0:34:520:34:54

They worked together,

0:34:540:34:56

all those parts of the German people were working together

0:34:560:35:00

in the annihilation of the Jews, for instance.

0:35:000:35:03

Well, I think, I don't... I don't agree with you

0:35:050:35:09

because I have to swear they protested and my father protested

0:35:090:35:14

even to Hitler that is impossible,

0:35:140:35:17

how to treat the people there and how to and he...

0:35:170:35:22

His fault was that he believed that Hitler would change his politics.

0:35:220:35:27

In our conversations we've touched on

0:35:280:35:31

what you've uncovered about your father,

0:35:310:35:33

he ran, for example, the transportation system

0:35:330:35:36

that shifted people to concentration camps and to their death.

0:35:360:35:40

And yet you've resisted in our conversations

0:35:410:35:45

ever acknowledging that he himself is somehow guilty for what happened.

0:35:450:35:51

Because it's his character.

0:35:510:35:55

I mean, I don't know about transportation

0:35:550:35:59

but when the Jewish ghetto in Lemberg was established

0:35:590:36:05

it's written down below his name, General-Governor Wachter,

0:36:050:36:11

but it's only signed by SS fuehrer...

0:36:110:36:15

So my father refused to sign this.

0:36:150:36:18

That's ridiculous, Horst.

0:36:180:36:21

If he has not signed some document

0:36:210:36:23

but it happened, it happened.

0:36:230:36:26

Do you remember, I showed you a letter that was sent

0:36:260:36:29

by Heinrich Himmler, and in the letter,

0:36:290:36:32

Himmler writes that he asked your father

0:36:320:36:35

whether your father would like to return to Vienna.

0:36:350:36:38

They weren't sure whether your father was fully committed

0:36:380:36:41

to what was about to happen,

0:36:410:36:43

and Himmler wrote, "Victor does not wish to return to Vienna."

0:36:430:36:48

In other words, he would stay and see through

0:36:480:36:52

what he knew was being done. Can you explain what...?

0:36:520:36:56

Yes, he had no choice.

0:36:560:36:58

He couldn't react like he himself felt

0:36:580:37:02

and he was just...

0:37:020:37:05

making...

0:37:050:37:07

He was just employee of his father, you see, but...

0:37:070:37:11

But he chose to stay, he could have gone.

0:37:110:37:13

Yes, but he felt responsible for the people.

0:37:130:37:16

Well, for some of the people.

0:37:160:37:18

Yes, for some... For some he could do.

0:37:180:37:21

From the first moment he was very close with the Ukrainians,

0:37:210:37:25

with the Galician division

0:37:250:37:28

and he actually tried to

0:37:280:37:33

do something positive.

0:37:330:37:35

Why, Niklas, did you introduce me to Horst?

0:37:350:37:38

-It was a trick.

-No, when we had our first conversation,

0:37:430:37:47

in this beautiful hotel,

0:37:470:37:49

as a lawyer, for sure, he was always in the best hotel available.

0:37:490:37:53

AUDIENCE LAUGHING

0:37:530:37:55

And I told him we came across Otto Wachter,

0:37:550:37:59

and I told him I am a friend of Horst Wachter,

0:37:590:38:02

his son is a very nice person.

0:38:020:38:04

And you said, "What?

0:38:040:38:06

"You are a friend of this family and of Horst Wachter?"

0:38:060:38:10

I think you will like him, you will like him.

0:38:100:38:13

I had nothing to hide

0:38:130:38:15

or I did nothing that you shouldn't know about my father.

0:38:150:38:20

And my, yeah, family was very angry.

0:38:210:38:24

-And still angry.

-And still angry, OK.

0:38:260:38:28

Do you regret that we're sitting here

0:38:280:38:30

-in an audience today?

-Yes, of course.

0:38:300:38:32

What do you want this audience to take away from this conversation?

0:38:340:38:38

What's the message that you want to leave them?

0:38:380:38:40

Well, I think there are many victims of the Holocaust in sitting here

0:38:420:38:48

and I want them to have a more concern,

0:38:480:38:55

more survey about how things were and they were,

0:38:550:39:01

that there were many different...

0:39:010:39:06

sides about the whole thing

0:39:060:39:07

and it was not just like a block like he wants it to be.

0:39:070:39:12

There had been many people who were against this,

0:39:120:39:18

but that's what I want you to acknowledge

0:39:180:39:22

and that's why I'm thankful I can say this

0:39:220:39:25

and I think it's not... It's my duty but it's also my right

0:39:250:39:30

and it should be said, I mean, and then that I'm very happy.

0:39:300:39:34

Lady over there.

0:39:360:39:38

I love my father and I honour my father

0:39:380:39:41

but as far as I'm aware my father has done nothing to be ashamed of,

0:39:410:39:45

and I don't know what it must be like

0:39:450:39:47

growing up with a heritage like both of you have.

0:39:470:39:50

I must however say, Horst,

0:39:500:39:52

that I think a lot of your arguments are so extraneous

0:39:520:39:56

to the main facts of the issue

0:39:560:39:58

to be actually so self-deceiving, I find it rather frightening.

0:39:580:40:03

All this rubbish about Ukrainians, that's extraneous to the issue.

0:40:030:40:07

OK, so...

0:40:070:40:09

APPLAUSE

0:40:090:40:10

So that's a clear view that's been put.

0:40:100:40:13

Yes, I accept. I accept the view and I think I can understand it.

0:40:130:40:18

The only thing which I...

0:40:180:40:20

It's only related between the relations between me and my father

0:40:200:40:25

and what I turned out to be with my father and that's what I say.

0:40:250:40:30

Nik's father sounds to me like the most horrible father

0:40:300:40:35

and you don't come from a happily married family or anything like that.

0:40:350:40:39

You had a happier childhood, is that not, is it too simple?

0:40:390:40:45

Yes, it must have been something very important

0:40:450:40:48

because... I was very embedded in the family

0:40:480:40:55

and I'm very proud that I had this childhood.

0:40:550:40:58

Niklas?

0:40:580:41:00

I won't say that I had an unhappy childhood. As a Prince of Poland,

0:41:000:41:05

I was really very well off, the best toys you can imagine.

0:41:050:41:10

Hi, I've got a question for Horst.

0:41:110:41:13

You say that your father didn't sign the paper and that's why you won't condemn him,

0:41:130:41:18

if his signature was on it, would you condemn him?

0:41:180:41:21

What would it take? What proof would it take for you to condemn your dad?

0:41:210:41:25

Yes, I would have condemned him, of course.

0:41:250:41:29

Yeah, but if he had signed?

0:41:290:41:31

I think the question is going you're taking refuge in the fact

0:41:310:41:34

that there are not in existence pieces of paper which say,

0:41:340:41:39

"And today I will kill 15,000 Jews"?

0:41:390:41:42

If you were presented with such a piece of paper,

0:41:420:41:44

would your position be any different in terms of saying

0:41:440:41:48

as a son you have a duty to defend your father?

0:41:480:41:51

Of course it would be different but it... It would be different

0:41:510:41:56

but I cannot imagine that one paper exists.

0:41:560:42:00

My father did everything what he could do to save the population

0:42:000:42:04

and my father is now... In these days,

0:42:040:42:07

the difficulties between Ukrainians is really venerated there.

0:42:070:42:12

As we met in the Purcell Room,

0:42:210:42:23

Ukraine was engaged in its own struggle

0:42:230:42:25

as to whether it would look east towards Russia

0:42:250:42:27

or west towards the European Union.

0:42:270:42:30

Some of the protesters voiced an age old hatred of Russia

0:42:300:42:33

and for that, they and the group as a whole,

0:42:330:42:35

which included writers, students and human-rights activists,

0:42:350:42:39

were accused of being fascists and neo-Nazis.

0:42:390:42:41

It was as if the past had returned to haunt the present

0:42:410:42:45

because there is a link between contemporary events in the Ukraine

0:42:450:42:48

and the period when Horst's father was in charge of District Galicia.

0:42:480:42:53

IN GERMAN

0:42:550:42:57

This is where Horst's father was based, in what's now called Lviv,

0:43:250:43:29

the Germans call it Lemberg, the Poles know it as Lwow.

0:43:290:43:32

The city's name reflects the changes in the region and the tensions.

0:43:320:43:36

The city is at the heart of this story

0:43:370:43:39

because the killings that link the three of us, me, Niklas and Horst,

0:43:390:43:43

are the events of August 1942 - the Grossaktion, as it's called -

0:43:430:43:48

when the Jewish population was almost entirely exterminated.

0:43:480:43:51

Before 1942, this city was an important centre of Jewish life,

0:43:550:43:59

a life that's now totally vanished.

0:43:590:44:01

This was my grandfather's hometown.

0:44:020:44:04

What I hadn't appreciated was how large a family my grandfather had left behind.

0:44:060:44:10

In fact, there was a vast family,

0:44:100:44:13

more than 80 individuals, and I didn't know that of those 80

0:44:130:44:17

who were alive in 1939, he was the only one still alive in 1945.

0:44:170:44:23

The building that we're in was the Parliament of Galicia,

0:44:410:44:45

in the Austro-Hungarian empire,

0:44:450:44:48

and then in 1919 when the Poles took over,

0:44:480:44:51

it then became the Jan Kazimierz University,

0:44:510:44:55

until September '39, then the Soviets came.

0:44:550:44:58

Then on July 1941,

0:44:580:45:03

the Germans came, and in to this room came

0:45:030:45:09

your father, Nik, as Governor-General,

0:45:090:45:12

and your father as Governor of Galicia,

0:45:120:45:15

and they stood on the platform,

0:45:150:45:18

they stood on the stage and your father made a speech

0:45:180:45:23

in which he announced, essentially,

0:45:230:45:25

the implementation of the Final Solution in Galicia,

0:45:250:45:29

and within a month, 75,000 people at least had died.

0:45:290:45:33

I would like to have this place which my father had had

0:45:330:45:38

and now, Horst, you have to hear what he was saying.

0:45:380:45:43

And he addressed your father

0:45:490:45:52

at first saying,

0:45:520:45:55

"Party comrade Wachter, I have to say, you did well.

0:45:550:46:01

"Lemberg is once again a true and proud German city.

0:46:010:46:06

"I do not speak about the Jews that we still have here."

0:46:060:46:10

And then hear at this.

0:46:100:46:13

"We will deal with them of course.

0:46:140:46:17

"By the way..."

0:46:170:46:19

Now it's my well-educated funny father,

0:46:190:46:23

and he's doing a joke.

0:46:230:46:25

"By the way, I hardly saw any of them today.

0:46:260:46:31

"What has happened?

0:46:310:46:33

"I was told that this city used to swarm with

0:46:330:46:37

"thousands and thousands of these flat-footed Indians

0:46:370:46:41

"but I could see none.

0:46:410:46:43

"You have not done anything nasty to them, have you?"

0:46:430:46:48

And the protocol wrote "great hilarity."

0:46:480:46:52

And you are still pretending you didn't find anything

0:46:530:46:57

which would accuse your father of being involved in this.

0:46:570:47:02

This I won't understand. As you know, I like you personally,

0:47:020:47:06

but I don't like your brains and your thoughts you have in your brain.

0:47:060:47:11

Horst, what would you need to see

0:47:110:47:13

to come to a different perspective of your father?

0:47:130:47:16

I don't think... I think all the guilty ones have been judged.

0:47:160:47:21

And I know that his father was some... Some...

0:47:210:47:25

He was a theatre man. He liked to make himself, hmm...

0:47:250:47:30

All these remarks he made and my father did never

0:47:330:47:36

avoided the personal contact with his father.

0:47:360:47:40

That was the reason before and I don't know of any anti-Semitic...

0:47:400:47:44

Anti-Semitic speech my father did, I don't know about.

0:47:440:47:48

Maybe he was just more careful?

0:47:480:47:51

Well, he was, he... He would... That was not his style.

0:47:510:47:55

He was a completely other style of man, like his father.

0:47:550:47:59

The result was the same.

0:47:590:48:02

He sat... He sat there in this room.

0:48:020:48:04

Yes, I'm very sorry about this, but, hmm...

0:48:040:48:07

Why? Why, if nothing... If he didn't do anything, why are you sorry about it?

0:48:070:48:10

He...

0:48:100:48:12

I mean, what should he have done?

0:48:130:48:15

He should have jumped up, as you said and said, "No.

0:48:150:48:19

"I'm against it and..."

0:48:190:48:21

Horst.

0:48:210:48:23

-No-one was responsible for what happened.

-Yes.

0:48:230:48:26

You have all the names of who are responsible.

0:48:260:48:28

You have all the names, all the details, they are all documented.

0:48:280:48:32

But the lists include your father.

0:48:320:48:34

No, they don't include my father.

0:48:340:48:37

They don't include my father.

0:48:380:48:39

You cannot say this, that's all imagination for me.

0:48:410:48:45

Do you... Do you want me to show you a document

0:48:450:48:47

-that lists your father?

-Yes.

0:48:470:48:49

-OK, stay there.

-OK.

0:48:490:48:51

If you... If you show it to me, but not speeches.

0:48:510:48:55

No, document.

0:48:550:48:57

I found it last week.

0:48:570:48:59

OK.

0:49:010:49:03

This is a Polish document.

0:49:030:49:06

I just found it on Friday.

0:49:060:49:08

-46.

-"28th of September, 1946."

0:49:080:49:11

-Uh-huh.

-"To the military governor,

0:49:110:49:13

"United States zone," OK?

0:49:130:49:16

"I, being the authorised representative

0:49:160:49:19

"of the Government of Poland, request on behalf of my government

0:49:190:49:24

"that Wachter be delivered to Poland for trial

0:49:240:49:28

"for the here and after described offences.

0:49:280:49:31

"One, subject is responsible for mass murder,

0:49:310:49:35

"shooting and executions,

0:49:350:49:37

"under his command as Governor of District Galicia,

0:49:370:49:40

"more than 100,000 Polish citizens lost their lives."

0:49:400:49:43

-Now...

-Yes. Of course.

0:49:490:49:51

That is made in September '46, I didn't know about this.

0:49:530:49:57

But still these are very general...

0:49:590:50:02

supposition of being mass murders...

0:50:020:50:06

under his command as Governor. Under his command...

0:50:060:50:10

That's... That's all generalisations for me.

0:50:100:50:14

Horst, like my father, he was a representative of Hitler

0:50:140:50:19

and as a Governor-General, so he was politically speaking,

0:50:190:50:24

responsible for every dead Jew or every Polish.

0:50:240:50:30

It's the same with you, with your father.

0:50:300:50:33

He was a Governor of Galicia and therefore he was

0:50:330:50:37

politically responsible for all the mass murders.

0:50:370:50:42

That mass murders were geheime Reichssache.

0:50:420:50:45

They were special things and he had no influence.

0:50:450:50:48

I saw... I see this is Soviet. This is a Soviet...

0:50:480:50:52

It's Polish and American.

0:50:520:50:54

Yes, but the...

0:50:540:50:56

That was... Poland was under Soviet rule at that time already.

0:50:560:51:01

It's a request to the Americans to assist, and the Americans assisted.

0:51:010:51:04

The Americans were not friendly with the Soviets.

0:51:040:51:06

Don't hide into the little corners.

0:51:060:51:08

-No, but this is a general...

-I'm asking you...

0:51:080:51:10

Horst, we'll come back to this.

0:51:100:51:12

I'm asking you what is really motivating you?

0:51:120:51:15

Why are you resisting with every fibre in your body,

0:51:150:51:19

the terrible evidence with which you are confronted?

0:51:190:51:21

Because I have so many documents from people who knew him personally

0:51:230:51:29

and who said he was a decent... He had a decent character.

0:51:290:51:33

And he tried everything that he could do to prevent the things that would happen.

0:51:330:51:39

I want to know what really was going on...

0:51:390:51:42

What was really going on was that your father was sitting there

0:51:420:51:46

in front of his father. His father was announcing that 100,000 Jews

0:51:460:51:51

are going to be murdered and your father sat there,

0:51:510:51:54

no expression on his face.

0:51:540:51:56

Clapping in this room, going off and doing his work.

0:51:580:52:02

That's what your father did, that's what he did.

0:52:020:52:05

Yes. I presume he did like that.

0:52:050:52:08

So that is terrible evidence.

0:52:080:52:11

But this is a speech. This is a rhetorical speech.

0:52:110:52:14

A highly rhetorical speech.

0:52:140:52:16

Hmm, and this was a political session here from somebody...

0:52:160:52:21

Horst, what happened two weeks later?

0:52:210:52:24

On the 17th of August?

0:52:240:52:27

You've shown... You've shown me the letter your father wrote to your mother.

0:52:270:52:32

"I'm coming back to Lemberg. The Grossaktion is beginning."

0:52:320:52:37

He knew all about it, and it happened.

0:52:370:52:40

75,000 people were killed, so that's a father to love?

0:52:410:52:46

That's a man one can love? An honourable man? A decent man?

0:52:470:52:51

I'm going back to help kill 75,000 people,

0:52:510:52:55

that's an honourable thing to do?

0:52:550:52:57

Of course it's not an honourable thing.

0:52:570:53:00

But it was... The system was something

0:53:020:53:07

for us today which you can't imagine.

0:53:070:53:11

Hmm...

0:53:110:53:12

The deaths were so near to everybody that it was nothing to...

0:53:130:53:19

Life of man was just nothing.

0:53:190:53:21

Horst fills me with despair.

0:53:270:53:30

I cannot accept that approach.

0:53:300:53:33

It's not just the lawyer in me

0:53:350:53:37

concerned with how one treats evidence,

0:53:370:53:41

it's much more personal than that.

0:53:410:53:43

When I hear him speak of his father's good character and actions,

0:53:430:53:46

I hear him to be justifying the killing of my grandfather's entire family.

0:53:460:53:50

This is where my grandfather's family came from

0:54:020:54:06

and this is where most of that family perished.

0:54:060:54:09

Do you ask yourself why we came here together?

0:54:420:54:45

Hmm... No, I had no problems to understand.

0:54:470:54:52

We...commemorate what happened and...

0:54:520:54:58

..we confronted what happened

0:55:010:55:05

and we feel sad and ashamed, maybe.

0:55:050:55:11

And we ask ourselves questions.

0:55:110:55:14

How it could be...

0:55:140:55:17

that such things happened in the past and continue to happen today?

0:55:170:55:19

It's the point, because they continue everywhere...

0:55:190:55:24

..and we have no means to stop them,

0:55:250:55:29

we have to accept them.

0:55:290:55:33

Well, that's where you and I disagree,

0:55:330:55:35

that's where you and I disagree. I think...

0:55:350:55:37

There are things that can be done to stop things from happening

0:55:410:55:44

and it's about in part individual responsibility.

0:55:440:55:46

It's where you and I... You and I disagree.

0:55:460:55:48

We have this small... We are small...

0:55:480:55:53

just like points in the whole history.

0:55:530:55:56

It's like the soldiers who fought here, they can't stand up and say,

0:55:560:56:00

"Oh, I don't want to fight."

0:56:000:56:02

They... They would be executed immediately.

0:56:040:56:07

So there's no option but to kill and carry on killing?

0:56:070:56:10

There are options... I mean, there's other ways

0:56:130:56:16

which are in your power to do something.

0:56:160:56:20

But this was inevitable.

0:56:200:56:21

-Your father had no option.

-For him, he had no option

0:56:210:56:25

to change this thing.

0:56:250:56:27

And because it was inevitable he had no responsibility?

0:56:270:56:29

Well, that's a difficult question, about responsibility.

0:56:320:56:37

Well, I don't think that he... He ordered to burn down this room.

0:56:400:56:46

I mean this, I refuse to say that he gave orders to burn down here.

0:56:460:56:51

I don't see my father in here, I mean...

0:56:550:56:58

I can't see walking, my father here, around here with his uniform,

0:57:020:57:06

and saying, "Oh, well, well done" and things like that.

0:57:060:57:10

I can't see him like this.

0:57:100:57:12

It's done.

0:57:140:57:15

But you...

0:57:180:57:20

I mean, in this room you have to have ideas,

0:57:210:57:25

great ideas, I'm not pessimistic, and you have to see...

0:57:250:57:30

..what was really going on building this up and...

0:57:310:57:35

..because for me this is built for eternity, you can see the enormous walls there.

0:57:360:57:43

The columns, the thickness, and for me,

0:57:430:57:46

this idea is much stronger than destroyed surfaces.

0:57:460:57:50

300 years filled

0:57:500:57:53

with people and singing and prayer and life

0:57:530:57:56

and colour and hair and jewellery.

0:57:560:57:58

-Yes, that is my...

-And it's all gone.

0:57:580:58:00

-It all went in a single day.

-No, it's not gone.

0:58:000:58:02

It's still there.

0:58:020:58:04

It isn't gone because that is my main interest,

0:58:040:58:08

why I agreed to come here, to go back to 300 years ago,

0:58:080:58:13

not be stuck in what happened 70 years ago.

0:58:130:58:18

It'll never be... It'll never be filled again, this place.

0:58:180:58:21

You don't know.

0:58:210:58:23

Maybe it will. I'm not so pessimistic than you.

0:58:230:58:27

This will be filled up.

0:58:330:58:35

I can tell you because it's so great..

0:58:350:58:38

..that this period will be gone and there will be a new period coming up

0:58:390:58:44

which can...

0:58:440:58:47

Can see it again, now it's...

0:58:520:58:54

..only a few people who can see this.

0:58:550:58:59

But I think... I can see it.

0:58:590:59:01

See, I don't want to get stuck somewhere.

0:59:020:59:05

Full of shame and full of...

0:59:080:59:10

Full of...

0:59:130:59:14

I'm proud to be here.

0:59:210:59:24

I always imagine when was the last Shabbat celebration before they all

0:59:310:59:37

were killed.

0:59:370:59:39

What if they talked to each other?

0:59:390:59:42

"How can we hide? How can we go into the woods?"

0:59:420:59:45

or "Do we have any relatives who can hide us somewhere in the countryside?"

0:59:450:59:50

All this kind of stuff, always running through my brain,

0:59:500:59:55

the only thing.

0:59:550:59:56

And this makes me furious and I will never forgive this.

0:59:561:00:01

So it was the synagogue of my family.

1:00:031:00:05

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

1:00:051:00:07

-This was...

-Here your family was?

1:00:071:00:08

Yeah.

1:00:081:00:09

-You didn't know that?

-No.

1:00:111:00:14

You always ask me what about my feeling, no.

1:00:141:00:17

What's your feeling standing here in this synagogue where your family used to be?

1:00:171:00:24

It's a very heavy feeling.

1:00:241:00:26

-It's a very, very heavy feeling.

-What means heavy?

1:00:261:00:30

It means that my imagination

1:00:301:00:32

is running very strongly.

1:00:321:00:35

I imagine the moment in July, 1941,

1:00:351:00:39

that the Germans came into the town,

1:00:391:00:42

and like you, I imagine the fear,

1:00:421:00:46

the mayhem and the certainty that they knew what was coming

1:00:461:00:49

because they had contacts with Vienna

1:00:491:00:51

and with Germany and they knew what was on its way,

1:00:511:00:54

and so for me it boils down to a number of individuals that I never met.

1:00:541:00:57

I don't even have photographs of these people.

1:00:571:01:00

Nothing, nothing remains, nothing,

1:01:001:01:02

but this would have been the place...

1:01:021:01:04

Where have they been the last time you have heard about this,

1:01:041:01:08

about those family? When...

1:01:081:01:12

My grandfather never talked to me about it.

1:01:121:01:14

-He refused to talk to me about it.

-You also didn't dare to ask.

1:01:141:01:16

I didn't dare to ask.

1:01:161:01:18

So, and when they perished,

1:01:181:01:21

they were still living around here using this synagogue.

1:01:211:01:24

Yes, well, the synagogue was burnt down in July '41.

1:01:241:01:28

The ghetto was created in the autumn

1:01:281:01:34

and they lived in the ghetto in '42

1:01:341:01:39

and they were then rounded up,

1:01:391:01:42

taken to a wood, where there were sand pits

1:01:421:01:46

that were used to repair the road from Zolkiew to Lemberg

1:01:461:01:50

and they put a plank at the end of the sand pit

1:01:501:01:54

and each of the 3,500 walked along the plank,

1:01:541:02:00

they were shot and they fell in.

1:02:001:02:04

But the story doesn't end there.

1:02:041:02:06

That's a kilometre from where we are standing now, they're still there.

1:02:061:02:09

Nothing's changed.

1:02:091:02:11

All the bodies are in the spot that we are going to right now.

1:02:111:02:16

This our fathers did.

1:02:501:02:53

So everyone remains here.

1:03:311:03:34

Nothing has been moved.

1:03:341:03:36

-Horst, you've seen the date over here?

-Yeah.

1:03:411:03:43

25th of March, 1943.

1:03:431:03:46

So I'm afraid there is no escaping

1:03:471:03:50

that this action took place on the territory

1:03:501:03:54

and with the support of your father.

1:03:541:03:56

And it contains 3,500 people.

1:03:591:04:03

Including my family.

1:04:041:04:06

CAMERA CLICKS

1:04:121:04:14

Horst, please accept it.

1:04:231:04:27

Recognise it.

1:04:281:04:30

It's also the responsibility of my father in first,

1:04:301:04:35

but your father was as well involved in this horrible crime.

1:04:351:04:41

Here in this place.

1:04:411:04:43

Please.

1:04:491:04:50

He was involved in the system, I know, this is why we're here.

1:04:501:04:56

The system was very, very obstructive.

1:04:561:04:59

-This is...

-I never...

1:04:591:05:00

..the place of a mass killing our fathers have been responsible for.

1:05:001:05:05

I want to have the exact date and who were, was responsible,

1:05:181:05:22

who was present here and the name

1:05:221:05:25

of the police officers and I will.

1:05:251:05:30

Why you always want to flee?

1:05:301:05:32

I do not flee.

1:05:321:05:34

I want to see the...

1:05:341:05:36

the reality.

1:05:361:05:38

And we are standing in the midst of a death,

1:05:401:05:43

that is all deaths around us.

1:05:431:05:46

There must be tens of thousands of Austrians lying around here.

1:05:461:05:50

But, Horst, we're not talking...

1:05:501:05:52

We're talking about these 3,500 people.

1:05:521:05:55

We're talking about these...

1:05:551:05:56

I see all of them around here, it's not only those.

1:05:561:06:00

Well, I'm talking about these.

1:06:001:06:02

I'm asking you to focus on these people

1:06:021:06:04

who on the 25th of March, 1943,

1:06:041:06:07

walked from the place where we have just been to this place,

1:06:071:06:12

with the support of the auxiliary police under your father's authority.

1:06:121:06:18

They were made to walk to the end of the plank,

1:06:181:06:20

each person got a single bullet to the head

1:06:201:06:22

and they are in there now.

1:06:221:06:24

There's simply no escaping

1:06:241:06:27

the issue of responsibility.

1:06:271:06:29

Not your responsibility, never your responsibility.

1:06:291:06:32

The responsibility of Otto von Wachter.

1:06:321:06:34

There is no escaping, you simply cannot run away from it.

1:06:341:06:38

You are confronted here with the reality.

1:06:381:06:41

And then I want the exact following of the orders

1:06:411:06:46

from the smallest soldier up to the civil government.

1:06:461:06:51

Do you know who paid the salary of the auxiliary police?

1:06:521:06:56

Your father.

1:07:001:07:01

That was paid by your father.

1:07:031:07:05

He signed off on it, that's called command responsibility.

1:07:051:07:08

Doesn't matter who did the individual act of killing,

1:07:111:07:13

doesn't matter who put the individual bullet in, doesn't matter.

1:07:131:07:16

Well, it matters for me.

1:07:161:07:18

Yeah, but as a matter of moral responsibility and as a matter of legal responsibility

1:07:211:07:25

it's totally irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.

1:07:251:07:28

He signed off on everything.

1:07:281:07:30

Well, he wouldn't have signed much coming here.

1:07:341:07:38

These people, I don't think.

1:07:391:07:43

I see this as a battlefield, you see,

1:08:031:08:06

because at the beginning of the first war in 1914,

1:08:061:08:10

there were these big battles and the soil was full of blood.

1:08:101:08:16

There have been so many killings going on.

1:08:241:08:28

The annual commemoration of Otto von Wachter's Waffen SS Galicia division,

1:09:141:09:19

created by him in 1943,

1:09:191:09:21

includes a ceremony to rebury newly discovered remains

1:09:211:09:25

of German and Ukrainian soldiers who fell in the fields near this chapel.

1:09:251:09:29

IN UKRAINIAN

1:09:531:09:56

WOMAN TRANSLATING IN ENGLISH

1:10:031:10:05

So am I right in thinking the historical role of the division

1:10:101:10:13

remains important today in modern Ukraine?

1:10:131:10:17

We hear Putin say that Ukraine is full of the fascists and Nazis.

1:10:301:10:36

Why are you wearing this swastika?

1:10:461:10:48

WOMAN TRANSLATING IN ENGLISH

1:10:501:10:51

-Now?

-Now, yes, he used this.

1:11:191:11:22

19th of February.

1:11:251:11:28

19th of February.

1:11:281:11:29

-Yes.

-You don't feel if you have... wear this helmet,

1:11:291:11:33

you don't feel like a German soldier in the memory of the SS?

1:11:331:11:37

You don't feel ashamed knowing exactly what happened under the swastika?

1:11:371:11:43

IN UKRAINIAN

1:11:431:11:46

Did he ever see Otto von Wachter speak?

1:12:151:12:19

IN UKRAINIAN

1:12:191:12:21

If he was to meet the son of Wachter,

1:12:261:12:28

what would he say to the son of Wachter?

1:12:281:12:30

WOMAN TRANSLATING IN UKRAINIAN

1:12:301:12:33

So can I present him to the son of...

1:12:481:12:51

Horst von Wachter.

1:12:541:12:56

Well, I must say this day was the best day for me

1:12:571:13:01

because so many people wanted to shake my hands

1:13:011:13:05

because of my father,

1:13:051:13:08

and saying he was a decent man

1:13:081:13:10

and that's all what I want, nothing else.

1:13:101:13:15

How you would like to introduce yourself beyond your name?

1:13:201:13:23

For sure he is an apologist for the actions of his father.

1:13:351:13:38

What still have in mind, maybe also in his heart

1:13:391:13:45

is a picture of a wonderful man

1:13:451:13:48

who tried the best for the Ukrainians,

1:13:481:13:52

and it's just a lie.

1:13:521:13:54

He is not accepting that his father

1:13:571:14:01

was involved in mass murder.

1:14:011:14:06

He should know better.

1:14:061:14:08

I really despise him like my father.

1:14:081:14:11

In my opinion, Horst will become a new Nazi in the end.

1:14:141:14:19

That is serious.

1:14:191:14:21

Not so serious because he's an old man like me,

1:14:211:14:25

so he can't do...

1:14:251:14:28

only some damage around with his friends and so...

1:14:281:14:32

But not in the... Really not in the public,

1:14:321:14:35

but I don't know exactly if they started also in Austria

1:14:351:14:39

to invite him for public events,

1:14:391:14:42

delivering a speech, showing the pictures.

1:14:421:14:45

This, the Austrians really would like.

1:14:451:14:48

How far does Horst have to go

1:14:481:14:51

for you to say I can no longer have a relationship with this man?

1:14:511:14:56

I think it's nothing left,

1:14:581:15:00

just my decision and I give him a last...

1:15:001:15:05

email to say that's not...

1:15:051:15:08

For me, not endurable any more.

1:15:081:15:11

Do you... Do you think Horst is a Nazi?

1:15:111:15:15

Yes.

1:15:151:15:16

Now I would admit he is really a Nazi.

1:15:161:15:20

Well, I think that Nik... is an egotistic maniac.

1:15:201:15:26

He's just focused on his father, you know,

1:15:261:15:29

and he makes his father most criminal being on Earth and so on.

1:15:291:15:35

But it's because it's his father.

1:15:351:15:38

It's only because it's his father,

1:15:381:15:41

otherwise he wouldn't do this, you know.

1:15:411:15:43

For me, his life is practically annihilated by his father.

1:15:431:15:49

When my father fled in 1945,

1:15:561:16:01

he went with the last members of his government,

1:16:011:16:04

his adjutant and his secretary and the cook to this house.

1:16:041:16:10

There he was arrested,

1:16:111:16:13

the last room on the right-hand side was his so called Andachtsraum.

1:16:131:16:21

His religious room or something like this,

1:16:211:16:23

and there he had hanged all the paintings,

1:16:231:16:26

this Leonardo Da Vinci,

1:16:261:16:28

two Rembrandts, one Raphael,

1:16:281:16:30

they are the most famous four.

1:16:301:16:32

I found it all my life, I found it very crazy

1:16:331:16:37

that my father was sitting in this small house in the end waiting

1:16:371:16:41

to be arrested from the Americans, and there were American soldiers

1:16:411:16:47

who some days before had liberated camp of the...

1:16:471:16:51

Dachau concentration camp outside,

1:16:511:16:54

have seen all the corpses

1:16:541:16:56

and they have heard

1:16:561:17:02

that the Butcher of Poland, which was his nickname all his life...

1:17:021:17:05

The butcher?

1:17:051:17:06

The Butcher of Poland...

1:17:061:17:08

was arriving and they have beaten him up heavily

1:17:081:17:13

so he tried twice to commit suicide,

1:17:131:17:16

but he didn't succeed.

1:17:161:17:18

He was brought to a hospital and then prison and then it was over.

1:17:181:17:25

He wrote in a letter...

1:17:251:17:28

to us, whenever we came, we should go over to this little chapel

1:17:281:17:33

to pray for him.

1:17:331:17:35

I never did it.

1:17:371:17:39

Does it ever make you want to cry though

1:17:411:17:43

when you come back to a place like this?

1:17:431:17:45

No, never.

1:17:451:17:47

-You've never cried about him?

-No.

1:17:471:17:50

Does that not seem... Does that not seem strange, he was your father?

1:17:501:17:55

He wasn't my father.

1:17:551:17:57

He was your father.

1:17:571:17:58

Biologically, but not...

1:17:581:18:01

So in the real trial, like it was in Nuremberg,

1:18:131:18:17

I don't think that my father would have been condemned...

1:18:171:18:21

I don't think so because...

1:18:241:18:28

who would have speak... Spoken up against him?

1:18:281:18:32

Maybe it would only be...Jews,

1:18:321:18:37

because of the Holocaust,

1:18:371:18:39

but the SS took all things which concerning Jews on their side.

1:18:391:18:45

Horst's father Otto von Wachter was indicted for mass murder

1:18:471:18:50

but died in 1949 under the protection of the Vatican.

1:18:501:18:53

He was never tried and that allows Horst to take refuge

1:18:531:18:58

in his own long view of history.

1:18:581:19:00

This is my grandfather,

1:19:001:19:02

Joseph von Wachter,

1:19:021:19:04

General of the Imperial Army in the first war.

1:19:041:19:09

Two times he prevented the Russian Army

1:19:091:19:13

to break through the Austrian lines in Galicia

1:19:131:19:16

where we've been around Zolkiew.

1:19:161:19:19

My father expressly wrote that he wants to continue

1:19:191:19:23

what my grandfather did there

1:19:231:19:26

and he chose at the moment he...

1:19:261:19:28

He knew that he was going to Galicia,

1:19:281:19:31

my father chose his coat of arm as a crusade order,

1:19:311:19:36

so this fighting crusade mentality is somewhere in the family.

1:19:361:19:41

The man who built this castle was a crusader

1:19:451:19:48

connected with the Templars.

1:19:481:19:50

And the ground plan corresponds to the temple in Jerusalem.

1:19:531:19:59

I feel like a descendant of Aaron.

1:19:591:20:03

I read the definition of a Jew -

1:20:031:20:06

a Jew is somebody who makes service in the temple.

1:20:061:20:10

And then I said I would be a real Jew here.

1:20:121:20:16

There's an image from the Krakow ghetto footage

1:20:241:20:26

that I can't get out of my mind.

1:20:261:20:28

You see a little girl, she's wearing a beautiful red dress

1:20:501:20:53

and I look at that girl and I think of my own children.

1:20:531:20:56

I think of my own family, I think of my grandfather's family

1:20:561:20:59

and I imagine if he had been in that ghetto he wouldn't have left

1:20:591:21:03

and I wouldn't be here today.

1:21:031:21:04

We're all prone to feelings of group loyalty,

1:21:111:21:13

a sort of tribal instinct that lumps people together.

1:21:131:21:16

We tend to see people as victim or perpetrator, as us or them.

1:21:161:21:21

I understand that tribal instinct and indeed I feel it myself

1:21:251:21:29

when I see that girl in the red dress.

1:21:291:21:31

But as a lawyer I've learnt to mistrust being swayed by such feelings,

1:21:331:21:38

to try to avoid a tribal instinct when it comes to dealing with issues of justice.

1:21:381:21:42

That's one of the reasons we have courts.

1:21:421:21:45

That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury

1:21:471:21:52

stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies

1:21:521:21:57

to the judgment of the law

1:21:571:21:59

is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.

1:21:591:22:04

IN GERMAN

1:22:051:22:08

But it is also true that Frank was a willing

1:22:321:22:36

and knowing participant in the use of terrorism in Poland

1:22:361:22:41

which led to the death by starvation

1:22:411:22:43

of over a million Poles

1:22:431:22:45

and in a programme involving the murder of at least three million Jews.

1:22:451:22:51

Frank didn't kill anybody personally,

1:22:531:22:55

yet the Nuremberg judgment was unequivocal

1:22:551:22:58

in finding him guilty of the murder of four million individuals.

1:22:581:23:01

It's called command responsibility.

1:23:011:23:03

I don't think that Horst is a Nazi,

1:23:051:23:07

but he's completely wrong about his father

1:23:071:23:09

who was a senior Nazi leader.

1:23:091:23:12

And if he'd been apprehended and tried,

1:23:121:23:15

he would certainly have suffered the same fate as Hans Frank.

1:23:151:23:18

Otto von Wachter's name is on the order authorising the construction

1:23:191:23:23

of the Krakow ghetto, game over.

1:23:231:23:26

Intention, having a decent character, as Horst puts it,

1:23:261:23:29

are totally irrelevant.

1:23:291:23:31

Nuremberg was the first time that the political leaders of a state

1:23:311:23:35

were hauled up in front of an international court of law.

1:23:351:23:38

Churchill wanted them to be lined up and shot,

1:23:381:23:41

but President Roosevelt preferred that a court should dispense justice

1:23:411:23:45

and justice is what Hans Frank got.

1:23:451:23:47

It's the only room in the world

1:24:151:24:17

where I'm a little bit nearer to my father.

1:24:171:24:21

Sitting here...

1:24:221:24:24

..and thinking of being him.

1:24:261:24:30

For about a year to be in here,

1:24:321:24:36

coming from a big castle, driving a big Mercedes.

1:24:361:24:41

Having a lot of uniforms and suddenly he's sitting here.

1:24:421:24:47

There's an open toilet with a small table.

1:24:471:24:50

With a small bed, nothing else.

1:24:511:24:55

There is right now in me a little kind of pity.

1:24:591:25:04

Yeah, here he sits.

1:25:051:25:07

Maybe it's the same place to us.

1:25:081:25:11

So it's a momentary feeling of pity,

1:25:111:25:15

is it amplified today, the anniversary of his execution?

1:25:151:25:20

No, it's not a special day of the 16th.

1:25:211:25:24

Around this time he was already dead.

1:25:251:25:29

In a lot of hours, shortly after 1:00 in the morning

1:25:301:25:33

they got him and...

1:25:331:25:37

the funny thing about when they caught...

1:25:371:25:43

Took my father to the gallows,

1:25:431:25:45

when they opened the door,

1:25:451:25:48

my father was kneeling like this.

1:25:481:25:52

And he said to the priest,

1:25:541:25:56

"Father, my mother... When I was a boy, my mother used to

1:25:561:26:02

"give me the cross every morning when I was leaving for school.

1:26:021:26:06

"Please do this also now."

1:26:061:26:10

And I think this catholic priest was very, very much enjoyed

1:26:111:26:15

and he did it. From behind, you have all these people

1:26:151:26:19

and he was kneeling here

1:26:191:26:20

and I used to say that's a ham actor's exercise.

1:26:201:26:26

Jesus Christ personally has shown himself to my father...

1:26:361:26:41

..and so maybe...

1:26:431:26:45

Maybe he... And it wasn't a ham actor's...

1:26:461:26:51

decision to do this, maybe it's really in those moments

1:26:511:26:54

very near to the gallows, very near to the death...

1:26:541:26:58

I am now about 30 years older than him so he was very young,

1:26:581:27:02

he was 46 years, and you know

1:27:021:27:05

you will not survive the 16th of October,

1:27:051:27:09

and maybe it was really an honest...

1:27:091:27:16

the only and last honest thing he did.

1:27:161:27:19

He wanted to go back to being an innocent child again.

1:27:191:27:24

What he was when his mother

1:27:251:27:28

makes the sign of God on his brain.

1:27:281:27:31

Maybe, the first time I think about it,

1:27:311:27:34

I think he wanted to be a little boy again

1:27:341:27:38

and having done nothing of all those crimes.

1:27:381:27:42

What a last stand.

1:28:211:28:23

Ah, it's a happy room for me, and for the world, I would say.

1:28:351:28:39

And then he's sitting here doing this and that and he starts like...

1:28:481:28:52

Maybe he was thinking, why I didn't stop it.

1:28:561:29:02

Why?

1:29:021:29:04

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