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 concen.
