This ordinary house next door shows “just how close heaven can be to hell on earth”.
The former home of the world’s biggest mass murderer, Rudolf Hoss – whose day job was as Auschwitz commandant – has opened its doors for the first time since World War II.
The Mirror was invited inside to mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz where 1.1 million people, the vast majority Jews, were slaughtered. I was warned visiting the Hoss house would make “your skin crawl”. It did.
It is the ultimate house of horrors as within its walls “monster” Hoss could watch Jews in the camp as they were marched to their death. House 88 was where he lived when he expanded the camp and came up with the idea of using Zyklon B, the trade name of cyanide based pesticide, to kill even more Jews faster.
The sense of normality at this home near a meandering river beside which the commandant and his five kids would picnic, was chilling. It’s a des res in a hub of depravity. He’d chosen the house number 88 as it represents the phrase ‘Heil Hitler’. His devotion to the fuhrer was deadly and relentless.
But on his time off he liked to join his wife tending roses in the giant greenhouse, doubtless their scent masking the pungent odour of burning bodies wafting in from the death camp next door.
Rudolf’s wife Hedwig would send the best blooms to Adolf Hitler, from 88 Legionow Street, Oświęcim, the home the Hoss family called “Paradise” despite it sharing a wall with a concentration camp.
This house with its twisted history has now been bought by the Counter Extremism Project from a Polish family whose ancestors had lived there since before and after the war – when it was seized by the Nazis.
They finally accepted a price because they were fed up with tourists peering into their windows after the house featured in powerful Oscar nominated film ‘Zone Of Interest’.
The Auschwitz museum is partnering with the CEO to use his unremarkable home to remind the world evil can be found anywhere. It could be lurking right next door.
This demonic dad would have a break from his killing rampages during World War II with simple pleasures like gardening and swimming.
What you notice when you first enter the house through its boringly brown front door is that you could go one of two ways.
Straight ahead is the comfortable living area with a pretty parquet floor but immediately to your right is a dark concrete stairwell leading through a bomb-proof bunker to a tunnel.
During his three-and-a-half years there, Hoss is believed to have frequently descended this stairway to hell to rape a female political prisoner, before washing off any evidence of his congress with Jews at a sink fitted by the tunnel entrance to return to his wife above.
In the gardens of the house you can still see the huge greenhouse, with virtually every other pane of glass now smashed.
But seeing how close it was to the gas chamber and “Crematoria One”, it is hard to imagine even the scent of a million roses would be able to totally mask the foul odour from the Nazi’s killing machines.
In futile attempts to hide the truth from their children, upper windows were made of frosted glass so they couldn’t see the hell going on virtually in their backyard.
In front of the guard tower, and to disguise it, a few feet away from their lounge window they’d planted a towering Norwegian Spruce, just like the one seen in London at Christmas.
But despite all these efforts it had to be impossible to hide the howling screams and the crack of gunshots echoing from the Death Wall just 150 yards away.
And there was no hiding from the ashes falling into the family’s outdoor swimming pool or on to Hoss’s prized lilacs.
It’s a stark reminder of how human beings, in this case, a loving father who told bedtime stories to his children, can plumb depths of heartrending evil.
Having lived the grimmest of lives, Hoss died a grim death. After the camp’s liberation he was hunted down and was hanged there. His house would have been among the last things that he saw.
Counter Extremism Project’s CEO, Mark Wallace, 57, told The Mirror they had been trying to buy the house “for years” and it involved “intensive” negotiations with nine relatives who had claim to the land.
Mark said the house was built in 1937 for those working in the military barracks behind before it was seized by the Nazis.
The former US ambassador to the UN, said: “I know that in the ordinary house next door to the largest industrial scale slaughter of people in the world, lived a horrible extremist, living a life which was ordinary if not luxurious.
“As humans we share certain types of traits but one thing that everyone can relate to is that everyone has a neighbour somewhere.
“Just like this house there could be an anti-semite, an extremist or radical in one of our houses next door…” He said the soil in the house is “sadly rich with the ashes of so many souls.”.
“You would think the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other places would be enough to convince us to never let that happen again. But what’s been shown is that 80 years later, ‘never forget’ is not enough.” He explained how they are now using it to do more to combat extremism.
Mark told how they cleared out 14 dumpsters of debris from the house but ended up keeping what is believed to be Hoss’s mug with the SS mark underneath, an empty box of soap powder, a Hitler stamp and newspaper clippings.
But their most disturbing find was in the attic, a pair of the infamous striped prisoner camp pants with a red triangle on, the mark used for political prisoners.
It is today kept in a glass case, crumpled from where it had been stuffed into a hole in the roof. They cannot see the ID number but believe they belonged to a starving male as wire had been used for a belt.
They also believe it to be from one of the earliest deportations; the space for the ID number is so small it suggests the man may have been one of the first to die.
“We can’t make out the serial number, the identification number, we are hoping to forensically find out.” Mark said, pointing out the “poor souls” could be seen marching to their deaths in “plain view of the house with that paradise literally across the wall.”
As a symbol he has placed a Mezuzah on the doorframe to show it is now a Jewish household open to all. “This is no longer paradise beyond anyone’s reach.”
We are shown round the house by Agata Miodowska, who tells us the house is just 150 metres from the gas chamber. As we stared out of the windows on the top floor, where five children slept in comfort, our guide remarked: “You can see how close heaven can be to hell on earth.
“To them (the Hoss family) it was like heaven but to all people who were here it was a nightmare, impossible to imagine. Every minute fighting for their lives. I’m not sure it is possible to get used to this view. ” Agata is proud the house is going to be turned into a centre for research on extremism, education and combating antisemitism.
The centre will be named the Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalisation (ARCHER). Jacek Pruski, the head of the future centre, said: “The dark history of the holocaust is behind that wall.”
But he said the hate that caused this has not gone away, describing extremism as a “growing problem”. “We are more aware of the hatred next door. The hate is growing while we are speaking.”
As we take one last look at the camp, Agata adds: “This terrible view is a reminder it can never happen again.”
