Analysis Of The Film Hitler's Children

How has guilt and anger affected avenues of reconciliation between the subsequent generations of perpetrators and victims?

The film Hitler’s Children was a documentary about the subsequent generations of the Nazi high command officials and how they deal with the legacy left behind by their ancestors, who were involved with the deaths of millions of people. In one scene Rainer Hoess the grandson of Rudolf Hoess is taking a tour of Auschwitz the concentration camp that his grandfather ran. During that time, he is does a Q&A with Jewish children and adults. In that there is an interesting exchange between him and Auschwitz survivor and young Jewish girl whose family was kept in and killed in the concentration camp.

The director focuses heavily

With the divide of the Jewish people saying that they are Jewish first and German after or just living in Germany, there is a deep fissure that neither the children of the victims or the children of the perpetrators want to cross. Another reason is that the younger generation of Non-Jewish Germans are tired of being blamed for something that they had no part of and weren’t even born during(etd). With people, such as Eldad Beck who said he was not ready to forgive, there is an understanding that scars are still deep within the Jewish people. There is no one size fits all fix for the pain and the anger and the guilt that has come out of the holocaust. The anger and guilt has led to a divide and mistrust between the Jewish and German people that is deep. The “us” and “them” mentality that has been in German-Jewish relationship cannot be fixed or at least smoothed out with monuments and trials. The only way to fix it is to have cool head dialogue that can lead to understanding which is a lot easier said than done. There may never be true reconciliation between these to two people with so much dark history in their past, but there have been signs that it could one day