Latest news with #CounterExtremismProject
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
What prison will look like for crossbow killer Kyle Clifford
When the whole-life sentence was handed down yesterday, Kyle Clifford was not there to hear it. Clifford, who brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, 25, her mother Carol, 61, and her sister Hannah, 28, with a crossbow last year, refused to attend court for his trial or sentencing. Speaking at Cambridge Crown Court, Mr Justice Bennathan was emphatic: for such horrendous crimes, Clifford would be handed the harshest punishment available under British criminal law. 'For each of these three murders, the sentence will be one of life imprisonment with a whole-life order,' he said. 'That means a sentence from which you will never be released.' So, what will life in prison be like for Clifford, with no hope of parole? He will be joining Britain's most notorious criminals in serving a whole-life order. There have only been 100 issued since the system was introduced in 1983, although their usage has increased in recent years. The penalty is reserved for the most serious of crimes – while prisoners sentenced to life serve an average of 16.5 years in prison, a whole-life order means Clifford will never be considered for release. Roughly 70 individuals are currently serving whole-life orders in English or Welsh prisons. They include Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered Conservative MP David Amess in 2021; Jordan McSweeney, who killed law graduate Zara Aleena in 2022; Wayne Couzens, the ex-police officer who kidnapped, raped and killed Sarah Everard in 2021; the serial killer Rosemary West, and, more recently, Lucy Letby, who murdered seven babies at the Countess of Chester hospital and attempted to kill seven more. In accordance with the severity of his crimes, Clifford will be held in one of the maximum-security Category A prisons designed for the most dangerous offenders, at least initially. 'There are only a limited number of prisons that can house those who have committed crimes of such gravity it must be impossible for them to escape,' says Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project. These Category A men's prisons include HMP Belmarsh, in London, where Clifford was held before his trial, and HMP Frankland, in County Durham. 'He has committed a crime so outrageous that escape must be made impossible,' Acheson adds. A prison worker and criminologist, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains that 'the immediate concerns will be for Clifford's safety – he'll be vulnerable to assault and attack, he might have a price on his head.' His medical condition – after shooting himself with the crossbow he used to attack Louise Hunt, her sister and mother, he is paralysed from the chest down – makes him especially vulnerable. 'Prison officers are going to have their own feelings about him,' she explains, as he is 'very high-profile, particularly newsworthy… [it is] a watershed case.' Usually, she says, 'I would be arguing against over-sentencing. But for Clifford, there is no getting away from the fact that he deserves the sentence he got. Prison officers will be thinking that, too.' Clifford is a former soldier, although Cambridge Crown Court heard that he spent a third of his three-year military career 'at home claiming to be ill'. This is unlikely to have an impact on his level of risk; according to Ministry of Justice figures from last year, approximately 3.6 per cent of the total prison population are ex-servicemen. After a period of assessment and observation, Clifford, 26, will be staring down the barrel of a potential 50-plus years – the rest of his life – behind bars. While the serious, sexual and high-profile nature of Clifford's offences means he could be considered at risk from other prisoners, Acheson suggests he is likely to pose a more significant risk to himself. 'He is notorious, and has committed crimes that are absolutely outrageous,' says Acheson. However, compared to the recent high-profile case of Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who murdered three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year, Clifford's victims were known to him. According to the unspoken prison code, this puts him a rung above those who killed indiscriminately or who harmed children. And, in the view of some prisoners, his notoriety could actually be an asset. 'He's going to be an immensely challenging security problem – because of his iconic status,' says Acheson. 'In prison, there will be warped people who will be attracted to that status.' Less than 24 hours before the triple murder, Clifford searched online for podcasts posted by the influencer Andrew Tate, described by the prosecution in court as the 'poster boy' for misogynists. Given Clifford is likely to spend a significant period of time in a high-security setting, or even in solitary confinement, he will not be able to access Tate's content, nor will he be able to socialise with prisoners who may share Tate's views. Given the hopelessness of his sentence, officers will be monitoring Clifford's risk to himself. Limited research has been done on the population of people serving whole-life sentences, but in Howard Zehr's book, Doing Life: Reflections on Men and Women Serving Life Sentences, one prisoner described life in prison without hope of release as a 'slow, torturous death.' Some look for another way out. '[Clifford] is a very dark character who obviously has immense psychological problems,' Acheson says. 'It was very clear there is no way out [of prison] for him, so the risk when a whole-life order is handed down is that [the prisoner] will take their own life.' While his case will never be reviewed by the Parole Board, depending on his behaviour as his sentence progresses, he could be downgraded to a Category B prison in the future. At some point, Acheson explains, he will be transferred to the 'lifer estate' – one of the prisons which has a high proportion of prisoners serving life sentences. Again, it is unclear where he will go, but one suggestion could be HMP Gartree in Leicestershire. The lower-security Category B prison is home to the largest group of life sentenced prisoners in England and Wales, and previously housed Ian Brady, who committed the Moors murders with his partner Myra Hindley, and serial killer Fred West. There is no telling how long this will take. 'It depends on the person,' says an anonymous prison worker. 'Someone like Levi Bellfield [the rapist and serial killer] – he's still in Frankland Prison.' According to Acheson, there is no doubt that 'he will have to be held somewhere for many years that's highly secure'. The biggest practical challenge of all could be keeping Clifford busy, and his severe medical condition will make this especially difficult. Like all prisons, HMP Gartree and other prisons in the 'lifer estate' follow a strict day-to-day schedule. There will be work, education and training programmes which, depending on Clifford's behaviour, physical ability and level of risk, he will be expected to take part in. Nothing, however, will be able to distract from the fact that in this case, life not only means life, but death behind bars. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
12-03-2025
- Telegraph
What prison will look like for crossbow killer Kyle Clifford
When the whole-life sentence was handed down yesterday, Kyle Clifford was not there to hear it. Clifford, who brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, 25, her mother Carol, 61, and her sister Hannah, 28, with a crossbow last year, refused to attend court for his trial or sentencing. Speaking at Cambridge Crown Court, Mr Justice Bennathan was emphatic: for such horrendous crimes, Clifford would be handed the harshest punishment available under British criminal law. 'For each of these three murders, the sentence will be one of life imprisonment with a whole-life order,' he said. 'That means a sentence from which you will never be released.' So, what will life in prison be like for Clifford, with no hope of parole? He will be joining Britain's most notorious criminals in serving a whole-life order. There have only been 100 issued since the system was introduced in 1983, although their usage has increased in recent years. The penalty is reserved for the most serious of crimes – while prisoners sentenced to life serve an average of 16.5 years in prison, a whole-life order means Clifford will never be considered for release. Roughly 70 individuals are currently serving whole-life orders in English or Welsh prisons. They include Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered Conservative MP David Amess in 2021; Jordan McSweeney, who killed law graduate Zara Aleena in 2022; Wayne Couzens, the ex-police officer who kidnapped, raped and killed Sarah Everard in 2021; the serial killer Rosemary West, and, more recently, Lucy Letby, who murdered seven babies at the Countess of Chester hospital and attempted to kill seven more. In accordance with the severity of his crimes, Clifford will be held in one of the maximum-security Category A prisons designed for the most dangerous offenders, at least initially. 'There are only a limited number of prisons that can house those who have committed crimes of such gravity it must be impossible for them to escape,' says Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project. These Category A men's prisons include HMP Belmarsh, in London, where Clifford was held before his trial, and HMP Frankland, in County Durham. 'He has committed a crime so outrageous that escape must be made impossible,' Acheson adds. A prison worker and criminologist, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains that 'the immediate concerns will be for Clifford's safety – he'll be vulnerable to assault and attack, he might have a price on his head.' His medical condition – after shooting himself with the crossbow he used to attack Louise Hunt, her sister and mother, he is paralysed from the chest down – makes him especially vulnerable. 'Prison officers are going to have their own feelings about him,' she explains, as he is 'very high-profile, particularly newsworthy… [it is] a watershed case.' Usually, she says, 'I would be arguing against over-sentencing. But for Clifford, there is no getting away from the fact that he deserves the sentence he got. Prison officers will be thinking that, too.' Clifford is a former soldier, although Cambridge Crown Court heard that he spent a third of his three-year military career 'at home claiming to be ill'. This is unlikely to have an impact on his level of risk; according to Ministry of Justice figures from last year, approximately 3.6 per cent of the total prison population are ex-servicemen. After a period of assessment and observation, Clifford, 26, will be staring down the barrel of a potential 50-plus years – the rest of his life – behind bars. While the serious, sexual and high-profile nature of Clifford's offences means he could be considered at risk from other prisoners, Acheson suggests he is likely to pose a more significant risk to himself. 'He is notorious, and has committed crimes that are absolutely outrageous,' says Acheson. However, compared to the recent high-profile case of Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who murdered three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year, Clifford's victims were known to him. According to the unspoken prison code, this puts him a rung above those who killed indiscriminately or who harmed children. And, in the view of some prisoners, his notoriety could actually be an asset. 'He's going to be an immensely challenging security problem – because of his iconic status,' says Acheson. 'In prison, there will be warped people who will be attracted to that status.' Less than 24 hours before the triple murder, Clifford searched online for podcasts posted by the influencer Andrew Tate, described by the prosecution in court as the 'poster boy' for misogynists. Given Clifford is likely to spend a significant period of time in a high-security setting, or even in solitary confinement, he will not be able to access Tate's content, nor will he be able to socialise with prisoners who may share Tate's views. Given the hopelessness of his sentence, officers will be monitoring Clifford's risk to himself. Limited research has been done on the population of people serving whole-life sentences, but in Howard Zehr's book, Doing Life: Reflections on Men and Women Serving Life Sentences, one prisoner described life in prison without hope of release as a 'slow, torturous death.' Some look for another way out. '[Clifford] is a very dark character who obviously has immense psychological problems,' Acheson says. 'It was very clear there is no way out [of prison] for him, so the risk when a whole-life order is handed down is that [the prisoner] will take their own life.' While his case will never be reviewed by the Parole Board, depending on his behaviour as his sentence progresses, he could be downgraded to a Category B prison in the future. At some point, Acheson explains, he will be transferred to the 'lifer estate' – one of the prisons which has a high proportion of prisoners serving life sentences. Again, it is unclear where he will go, but one suggestion could be HMP Gartree in Leicestershire. The lower-security Category B prison is home to the largest group of life sentenced prisoners in England and Wales, and previously housed Ian Brady, who committed the Moors murders with his partner Myra Hindley, and serial killer Fred West. There is no telling how long this will take. 'It depends on the person,' says an anonymous prison worker. 'Someone like Levi Bellfield [the rapist and serial killer] – he's still in Frankland Prison.' According to Acheson, there is no doubt that 'he will have to be held somewhere for many years that's highly secure'. The biggest practical challenge of all could be keeping Clifford busy, and his severe medical condition will make this especially difficult. Like all prisons, HMP Gartree and other prisons in the 'lifer estate' follow a strict day-to-day schedule. There will be work, education and training programmes which, depending on Clifford's behaviour, physical ability and level of risk, he will be expected to take part in.
The Independent
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
What really happened inside the home of the monster of Auschwitz
Downstairs, there was a kitchen. Then there was a living room; there was a dining room, a guest room, I think. On the second floor, there were all the bedrooms.' This is Brigitte Hoess talking. Her voice, in a raspy German accent, is giving me a tour of her childhood house. This was not just any house. It is the villa where the commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess lived with his wife and five children – including Brigitte, who lived there until she was 11 years old. She remembers her father as someone who tucked her in at night and would let her go downstairs on Christmas Eve to eat real cookies left under the Christmas tree. As he masterminded the mass murder of more than a million men, women and children in the camp next door, he would pat the family dalmatians, entertain friends and listen to records on the gramophone as he smoked his favourite cigars. Brigitte Hoess's childhood home was the home of the Holocaust. The house next door to where 1.1 million Jewish people, along with 20,000 gypsies and tens of thousands of Polish and Russian political prisoners were murdered. I had first seen the Hoess villa 16 years ago when I visited the Auschwitz camp. I was with Rudolf Hoess's grandson Rainer and daughter-in-law Irene, the first family members to return to the camp since the Kommandant's departure in 1944. At the time, a Polish woman was living at the Hoess's former family home (located at 88 Legionow Street). She owned the house, but would not give us entry. I was surprised; it felt that this villa was a site of tremendous historical importance and should be open to the public. Over the past few years, an American non-profit organisation called the Counter Extremism Project has been negotiating with its Polish owner. In 2024, it was finally able to complete the purchase to open it to the public. The project has the support of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Unesco and the Polish Foreign Ministry. The story of this Nazi family was also told in the Oscar-winning film Zone of Interest, though the actual house that was used to shoot the film stands a few hundred yards from the original villa. Now, I am back in Auschwitz for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp and the official opening of the Hoess villa to the public. This is why I am walking around the villa listening to Brigitte giving me a virtual tour in my AirPods – from an interview she gave me before she died in October 2023. I stand in Rudolf Hoess's large well-lit bedroom. I walk down the stone steps he came down each day. I'm in the kitchen where he drank coffee, chatted with his wife, and asked his children about their day. The normality of it is disorientating, creepy. The new owners want to use the lessons of the past to confront the rise of extremism today. They point to escalating racist violence, abuse and antisemitism across the globe. The normalisation of populist rhetoric against migrants and permission to promote hate speech. All this is happening, just as the living memories of those who survived the Holocaust fade. I too have a personal connection to this house. My Jewish family was forced to flee Nazi Germany. At least five members of my family were murdered in the Holocaust. And my great uncle Hanns Alexander, a captain in the British army, arrested Rudolf Hoess in March 1946. Hoess gave testimony at the Nuremberg Trials and provided the first detailed account of the mechanics of the Holocaust: the transports, the selections, the gas chambers, the crematoria. His account changed the course of the trial. He was then taken to Poland where he was tried and then, in April 1947, hanged on a gallows a few yards from where he and his family had lived. It was while researching my book Hanns and Rudolf – a dual biography of my uncle and the Kommandant – that I tracked down Rudolf's daughter Brigitte, who lived just outside of Washington DC. For decades, she had lived a quiet life on a leafy street in Northern Virginia. Working in a fashion salon, nobody who knew her knew that her father was the man who had turned an old army barracks in Poland into a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour. After tracking her down, it still took three years to persuade her to speak with me on the record. Brigitte was seven years old when she first arrived at the villa next to Auschwitz in 1940. She would remain there till 1944 and still, after all those years, her memory remained crystal clear. I walk into what would have been her living room, a large space with parquet wooden floors and windows looking onto the street and beyond that the Sola River. The only thing in the room is a grand piano, being played by the Italian pianist Francesco Lotoro. The notes are upbeat and melodic, in stark contrast to the surroundings; Francesco explains the piece was written by Adam Kopycinski, a prisoner in Auschwitz. The living room was where the family had their Christmas tree. 'When the ornaments were done,' Brigitte recounts, 'my dad rang a bell and opened the door. And there was a tree with all the lights on, real lights, you know, white candles.' After dinner on Christmas Eve, the children were allowed to go to the tree where they found some treats. 'Always real cookies,' she continues, 'We could get some down. And eat some, not all, a couple.' I go outside into the garden. This is where in the summer the children spent a lot of time. 'We had fun,' I hear her say in my ears. 'We had a little swimming pool in the backyard. My mother had a beautiful garden house with flowers. She loved flowers.' The family had two big dalmatians. They also had a pair of tortoises, she remembers with a warm laugh, they were called Jumbo and Dilla. And they kept bees in little houses, their honey would be collected by one of the helpers. Brigitte's father would write that his wife, Hedwig, described the villa and the family's life at Auschwitz as 'paradise'. Near the front door, I head down a dark steep staircase to the bunker in the basement. 'Whenever the alarm went off, we had to go down,' Brigitte says, her voice growing quieter as she remembers the fear. 'We had a little suitcase next to our bed with clothes in it. And we picked it up and went downstairs when my mom said 'Let's go downstairs'.' I climb the grey stone stairs to the second floor. There are three bedrooms and a bathroom. Brigitte and her sister Heidertraud slept in one of these rooms. Her two brothers shared a room. Her parents slept in the room next door with the baby Annegret. Through the windows you can see row upon row of prisoner barracks, the camp's tall concrete wall and the guard towers. The horrors next door are all impossibly close; the prisoners would have been easily seen out of the windows as Brigitte and her siblings would simultaneously be clattering around the house. My heart races; the mixture of intimacy and persecution feels appalling. Brigitte's voice is still in my ears. At night, her father would read them bedtime stories and he was affectionate: 'Always a kiss, always hugging when we went to bed.' He would say 'Schlaf shoen, mein Kinder' – sleep well, my children. How did a man who oversaw the slaughter that was going just metres away sleep well, did she think? 'There must have been two sides to him,' she told me, 'the side I knew, and this other side.' The US psychologists who evaluated Rudolf Hoess in Nuremberg had found him to be without signs of mental illness such as psychopathy. In his memoir, Hoess wrote that he had been greatly distressed by the gassings, so much so that he often drank himself to sleep at night. In other words, this was a man capable of both human kindness and empathy. And yet, day after day, he woke up in the family villa and chose to carry out mass murder. It tells a stark tale of the human condition; how we are all capable of both extreme good and extreme bad. Standing all these years later in the Hoess family villa, the place where a loving father made abhorrent choices with such terrible consequences, I understand the urgency of opening the doors of 88 Legionow Street to the public. To breathe in its overwhelming ordinariness knowing the unimaginable horror of the camp next door is to learn an important lesson about our past. It stands as a warning: if we are not vigilant, a catastrophe such as Auschwitz can happen again. As I leave the villa, I notice the new owners have added some writing to the wall of one of the ground floor rooms. 'The aftermath of the Holocaust should have meant an end of antisemitism, extremism and hate,' they say. 'But 80 years later, all three are rampant and rising. 'Never forget' has proven not enough. Sometimes, we must interfere.'
The Independent
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Inside the commandant of Auschwitz's home, the secrets his daughter revealed to me came to life
Downstairs, there was a kitchen. Then there was a living room; there was a dining room, a guest room, I think. On the second floor, there were all the bedrooms.' This is Brigitte Hoess talking. Her voice in a raspy German accent is giving me a tour of her childhood house. This was not just any house. It is the villa where the commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess lived with his wife and five children – including Brigitte who lived there until she was 11 years old. She remembers her father as someone who tucked her in at night and would let her go downstairs on Christmas Eve to eat real cookies left under the Christmas tree. As he masterminded the mass murder of more than a million men, women and children in the camp next door, he would pat the family dalmatians, entertain friends and listen to records on the gramophone as he smoked his favourite cigars. Brigitte Hoess's childhood home was the home of the Holocaust. The house next door to where 1.1 million Jewish people, along with 20,000 gypsies and tens of thousands of Polish and Russian political prisoners were murdered I had first seen the Hoess Villa 16 years ago when I visited the Auschwitz camp. I was with Rudolf Hoess's grandson Rainer and daughter-in-law Irene, the first family members to return to the camp since the kommandant's departure in 1944. At the time, a Polish woman was living at the Hoess's former family home (located at 88 Legionów street). She owned the house, but would not give us entry. I was surprised, it felt that this villa was a site of tremendous historical importance and should be open to the public. Over the past few years, an American non-profit organisation called the Counter Extremism Project has been negotiating with its Polish owner and in 2024, were finally able to complete the purchase to open it to the public. The project has the support of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Unesco and the Polish Foreign Ministry. The story of this famous Nazi family was also told in the Oscar-winning film Zone of Interest, though the actual house that was used to shoot the film stands a few hundred yards from the original villa. Now, I am back in Auschwitz for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp and the official opening of the Hoess villa to the public. This is why I am walking around the villa listening to Brigitte giving me a virtual tour in my AirPods – from an interview she gave me before she died in October 2023. I stand in Rudolf Hoess's large well-lit bedroom. I walk down the stone steps he came down each day. I'm in the kitchen where he drank coffee, chatted with his wife, and asked his children about their day. The normality of it is disorientating, creepy. The new owners want to use the lessons of the past to confront the rise of extremism today. They point to escalating racist violence, abuse and antisemitism across the globe. The normalisation of populist rhetoric against migrants and permission to promote hate speech. All this is happening, just as the living memories of those who survived the Holocaust fade. I have a personal connection to this house too. My Jewish family was forced to flee Nazi Germany. At least five members of my family were murdered in the Holocaust. And my great uncle Hanns Alexander, a captain in the British army, arrested Rudolf Hoess in March 1946. Hoess gave testimony at the Nuremberg Trials and provided the first detailed account of the mechanics of the Holocaust: the transports, the selections, the gas chambers, the crematoria. His account changed the course of the trial. He was then taken to Poland where he was tried and then in April 1947 hanged on a gallows a few yards from where he and his family had lived, the Hoess villa. It was while researching my book Hanns and Rudolf – a dual biography of my uncle and the Kommandant, that I tracked down Rudolf's daughter Brigitte, who lived just outside of Washington DC. For decades she had lived a quiet life on a leafy street in Northern Virginia. Working in a Washington fashion salon, nobody who knew her knew that her father, Rudolf, was the man who had turned an old army barracks in Poland into a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour. After tracking her down, it still took me three years to persuade her to speak with me on the record. Brigitte was seven years old when she first arrived at the villa next to Auschwitz in 1940. She would remain there till 1944 and still, after all those years, her memory remained crystal clear. I walk into what would have been her living room, a large space with parquet wooden floors and windows looking onto the street and beyond that the Sola River. The only thing in the room is a grand piano, being played by the Italian pianist Francesco Lotoro. The notes are upbeat and melodic, in stark contrast to the surroundings; Francesco explains the piece was written by Adam Kopycinski, a prisoner in Auschwitz. The living room was where the family had their Christmas tree. 'When the ornaments were done,' Brigitte recounts, 'my dad rang a bell and opened the door. And there was a tree with all the lights on, real lights, you know, white candles.' After dinner on Christmas Eve, the children were allowed to go to the tree where they found some treats. 'Always real cookies,' she continues, 'We could get some down. And eat some, not all, a couple.' I go outside into the garden. This is where in the summer the children spent a lot of time. 'We had fun,' I hear her say in my ears. 'We had a little swimming pool in the backyard. My mother had a beautiful garden house with flowers. She loved flowers.' The family had two big dalmatians. They also had a pair of tortoises, she remembers with a warm laugh, they were called Jumbo and Dilla. And they kept bees in little houses, their honey would be collected by one of the helpers. Brigitte's father would write that his wife, Hedwig, described the villa and the family's life at Auschwitz as 'paradise'. Near the front door, I head down a dark steep staircase to the bunker in the basement. 'Whenever the alarm went off, we had to go down,' Brigitte says, her voice growing quieter as she remembers the fear. 'We had a little suitcase next to our bed with clothes in it. And we picked it up and went downstairs when my mom said 'Let's go downstairs'.' I climb the grey stone stairs to the second floor. There are three bedrooms and a bathroom. Brigitte and her sister Heidertraud slept in one of these rooms. Her two brothers shared a room. Her parents slept in the room next door with the baby Annegret. Through the windows you can see row upon row of prisoner barracks, the camp's tall concrete wall and the guard towers. The horrors next door are all impossibly close; the prisoners would have been easily seen out of the windows as Brigitte and her siblings would simultaneously be clattering around the house. My heart races; the mixture of intimacy and persecution feels appalling. Brigitte's voice is still in my ears. At night, her father would read them bedtime stories and he was affectionate: 'Always a kiss, always hugging when we went to bed.' He would say 'Schlaff Shoen mein Kinder' – sleep well, my children. How did a man who oversaw the slaughter that was going just metres away sleep well did she think? 'There must have been two sides to him,' she told me, 'the side I knew, and this other side.' The US psychologists who evaluated Rudolf Hoess in Nuremberg had found him to be without signs of mental illness such as psychopathy. In his memoir, Rudolf wrote that he had been greatly distressed by the gassings, so much so that he often drank himself to sleep at night. In other words, this was a man capable of both human kindness and empathy. And yet, day after day, he woke up in the family villa and chose to carry out mass murder. It tells a stark tale of the human condition; how we are all capable of both extreme good and extreme bad. Standing all these years later in Hoess' family villa, the place where a loving feather made abhorrent choices with such terrible consequences, I understand the urgency of opening the doors of 88 Legionow street to the public. To breathe in its overwhelming ordinariness knowing the unimaginable horror of the camp next door, is to learn an important lesson about our past. It stands as a warning: if we are not vigilant a catastrophe such as Auschwitz can happen again. As I leave the villa, I notice the new owners have added some writing to the wall of one of the ground floor rooms. 'The aftermath of the Holocaust should have meant an end of antisemitism, extremism and hate,' they say. 'But 80 years later, all three are rampant and rising. 'Never forget' has proven not enough. Sometimes, we must interfere.'
Euronews
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
House next to Auschwitz opens to public amid alarming international survey results on Holocaust
The house where German SS officer and commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp Rudolf Höss lived with his family will open to the public for the first time today, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. Through the efforts of the American non-profit Counter Extremism Project, in coordination with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the Polish foreign ministry and UNESCO, the villa will become the home of the 'Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism and Radicalisation'. The New York-based NGO's mission since 2014 is to 'combat the growing threat posed by extremist ideologies'. Commandant Höss lived at the villa with his wife Hedwig and their five children for four years, a home which stood immediately next to the concentration camp, with their garden wall and the wall of the camp being one and the same. This is the same house the was immortalized in Jonathan Glazer's Oscar-winning film, The Zone of Interest, in which we observe the everyday domesticity of the family in the living space built next to a dying one. In 1942, Höss established and helmed the plans for the Auschwitz gas chambers and crematoriums, including the use of Zyklon B gas. Höss was arrested in 1946, tried by a Polish court and hanged in Auschwitz the following year. House 88 – named after its address 88 Legionow Street – was bought by a Polish family and it was only last year that the NGO Counter Extremism Project persuaded them to sell the property to transform it into centre to combat hate. The opening of House 88 coincides with an alarming international survey examining Holocaust knowledge and awareness. The Claims Conference conducted eight surveys across 10 countries – including the US, UK, France, Germany, Poland and Hungary – and while overall awareness about the Holocaust is high, Holocaust distortion is also alarmingly widespread. 'Overall, a majority of all populations surveyed did not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust,' stated the research, adding that 20% or more respondents in seven out of the eight countries surveyed believe 2 million or fewer Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Shockingly, many adults surveyed said that they had not heard or weren't sure if they had heard of the Holocaust prior to taking the survey. 'This is amplified among young adults ages 18-29 who are the most recent reflection of local education systems; when surveyed, they indicated that they had not heard or weren't sure if they had heard of the Holocaust (Shoah): France (46%), Romania (15%), Austria (14%) and Germany (12%).' The survey results also flagged up that while Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known death camp, nearly half (48%) of Americans surveyed are unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during World War II. The majority of respondents in each country, except Romania, believe something like the Holocaust could happen again today, and Americans and Hungarians are most likely to report that Holocaust denial is common in their countries. In Hungary, 45% of all survey participants stated that denial is common in their country. This is followed by 44% in the US, 38% in France, 34% in Germany, 27% in Austria, 24% in the UK and Romania, and 20% in Poland. Additionally, the research show that nearly half of adults in the US (49%), Hungary (47%), France (44%) and Germany (44%) report that Holocaust distortion is common in their country – especially on social media. 'The alarming gaps in knowledge, particularly among younger generations, highlight an urgent need for more effective Holocaust education,' says Gideon Taylor, President of the Claims Conference. 'The fact that a significant number of adults cannot identify basic facts - such as the 6 million Jews who perished - is deeply concerning.' Equally troubling is the widespread belief that something like the Holocaust could happen again, underscoring the critical importance of educating people about the consequences of unchecked hatred and bigotry,' added Taylor. 'We are proud of the progress made by our partners worldwide, but this Index makes it clear: there is still much more work to be done.' The progress referred to is support for Holocaust education. Across all countries surveyed, nine-in-10 or more adults believe it is important to continue teaching about the Holocaust - 'in part, so it does not happen again'.
