We enjoyed this book very much and had a good discussion on the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
We discussed the difficulties after the Second World War of German people having to re invent themselves as the subject of this book is about the former wife of a concentration camp commandant. She has to leave Germany with her daughter and conceal her past. This continues throughout her life where they face many difficult circumstances and the worry of being discovered.
We discussed the horrors of the concentration camps and how this contrasted to the life of Rudolf Hoss and his family who lived an idyllic life ‘on the other side of the fence’. ( A new film by Jonathan Glazers is based on the ‘The Zone of Interest’ which was a 16 square mile zone surrounding the camp and administered by the SS … preventing the outside world from witnessing the atrocities and isolating the prisoners from the rest of the world.)
The Real History Behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ and Rudolf Höss