Hiding in N. Virginia, a daughter of Auschwitz

"Brigitte Höss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences.

"Brigitte also has a secret that not even her grandchildren know. Her father was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz.

"It was Rudolf Höss who designed and built Auschwitz from an old army barracks in Poland to a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour. By the end of the war, 1.1 million Jews had been killed in the camp, along with 20,000 gypsies and tens of thousands of Polish and Russian political prisoners. As such, Brigitte’s father was one of the biggest mass murderers in history."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/hiding-in-n-virginia-a-daughter-of-auschwitz/2013/09/06/1314d648-04fd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html?hpid=z4

 

That's an interesting story. You can almost sense a schizophrenia in her, trying to keep that knowledge separate from her 'new' identity. There must have been a lot of people who felt that way after the war.

 

What a great story, and one hell of a dilemma for anyone to find themselves in. Unlike Goebbels' kids, at least she survived though.

 

Wow, very interesting story here. What a life those kids had, knowing about their parent's past and yet having to adjust to the circumstances...and in the context of something as dramatic as Auschwitz. It must have been a long past half-century for this woman.

I also agree with KodiakBear, she seems slightly schizophrenic, especially when you take into account the migraines and the fractured/suppressed memories of her father.