Zone of Interest

To say I was shocked at this movie is an understatement. When I saw that a movie that is based on the Holocaust was rated PG, I laughed. I figured that it was not going to be anything special because how can you cover the travesty and horror of the Holocaust without showing anything? Well, the movie did just that, but instead of showing the gruesome nature of those years, it used an underappreciated method, Sound. You never saw anything that happened, but you heard it…all of it.

Now brief overview the movie is about the family of one of the notorious commanders in charge of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, whose family had the lovely time living next to the camp. Which that sentence in itself is just strange to write… But it is true, to them, they were living the dream in this huge house with a huge property around it.

The movie wastes no time showing, what we would call disgusting acts of the Nazi’s during this time, but to these families it was the perks of who their husband is. The one scene that really hit is this man comes over with this bag, you think its supplies considering that it is in the time of the war, but as it is put on the table and the wife of Höss says you can each have one, something doesn’t seem right. They then pick up the items and it’s not food… its baby clothes… brought over from the camp… and being in 2024 we all know what that means.

Another haunting moment is when two engineers come over to talk about the ovens to Höss and they speak how these can go continuously and can each fit a load of 500. It takes you a second, but you realize they are talking about the chambers where they burnt the Jews, and the load of 500 is really that they can fit 500 people in…

The truly haunting and extraordinary part about this movie is the amount of emotion it stirs up in you while showing nothing. There is no gruesome imagery, you see no Jews being injured or in the horrible conditions we know they had to suffer in. You just hear.

How they manage to do this is extraordinary and really makes you question your own humanity at times. Let me explain. At first during the movie, you just hear the occasional gunshot. The first one you hear hits you so hard as you know what it is... it is a Nazi soldier shooting a Jew dead... haunting for sure. But that is not the crazy mind game that the movie does play with you.

As the movie goes on, the sounds keep getting louder and there are more of them. But at points it is almost as they are just normal background noise… The movie being a slower movie almost makes you feel the sense of boredom and it is at that moment that you no longer just hear gunshots, but you also hear the screams of the Jews terrified, the yells of the Nazi’s deciding who to kill and the cries of babies as they are separated from their families and killed…

You feel disgusted with yourself. How could you just tune out and make these horrible acts just normal background noises? But that is exactly what the family has done that you have been disgusted with this whole time.

The simplicity of this movie makes it one that is incredibly haunting and something that everyone should watch as it really does a great job of showing the hardships of the Holocaust and the terrible crimes of Auschwitz with showing really nothing violent or disturbing. Moments where this family is trying to live a “normal” life with all these terrible acts next door leave you realizing that they chose that life. The wife of Höss being called the Queen of Auschwitz and how she did not want to leave their house there because they earned it is something I think will stick with me forever, deeper than any gruesome image of the war.

Rudolf Höss ran Auschwitz for close to 5 years during the time of the Nazi’s. In that time period he ordered and managed the death of over a million Jews of all ages. Some say the number may even be closer to 2.5 million but Höss claimed that was inaccurate as many of those people died of disease and starvation, not directly by his hand.