What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy Page #2

the light is not so good here.

- So your father?

- Yeah.

- And this is Himmler.

- Yeah.

It is in '43, must be.

- His Galician SS Division.

- Yeah.

That was his biggest effort there

and because it built up this division

with the help of the Ukrainians.

And that's... That's not you?

That is me, yes, that's me.

You went to stay

in the Franks' summer house?

- I must be sitting behind there.

- You're sitting there. That's you over there.

Yeah, it must be.

I think that's Niklas...

- Yes, it could be.

...in the Schoberhof.

The very first picture I have in mind

I was being washed by my nurse.

It was my first memory

it was here in Schoberhof.

Our rooms were on the back side,

it's now torn down.

The building, it became more and more a ruin

but now it really turned me apart

when I saw they are rebuilding it

in a new way,

that really hurts.

Because?

- Because it's my home.

We always had our holidays here,

we loved the mountains around here, skiing.

My beloved nurse Hilda,

she was always with us.

Everything what is human with me,

came from Hilda not from my mother.

And when my mother came back

for instance and said,

Oh, Hilda, go away,

now I am with my children.

You have a free day off.

And after 20 minutes she said,

"No, no, Hilda, you have to stay.

"I can't do it with the children,

I am too nervous.

"Please keep the children with you. "

And she was away with her old Mercedes.

Because I have some memories also of Poland

and she filled in what was left.

For instance, by visiting the Krakow ghetto.

I only had some, few...

And she said

where it was, when it was and what happened.

Did she accompany you?

- Yes, she was with me.

I was never alone as a little child

In the Krakow ghetto.

Together with my mother.

What did you. I mean,

what did you've seen in the Krakow ghetto?

The only thing I remember was

that I was standing inside my Mercedes car,

on the back side

and there were a lot of sad people

around me outside.

And there were some young people of my age,

children.

And to one of them I took out my tongue,

and he went away very sadly looking,

and so I was the winner

and I was laughing aloud.

But Hilda took me back

and was silent besides me,

showing me that was not correct.

Your mother accompanied you on that trip?

Yes, but she was outside of the car

shopping in the ghetto.

What shopping was there in the ghetto?

I mean the imagination...

Furs, furs.

She was always looking for furs.

When you say shopping,

you meaning shopping or stealing?

She's said "surprises" I would say

and everybody who was

selling to her would say,

"Oh, that's the wife of the Governor-General.

I'm lucky I will survive. "

Yeah, and did your father

accompany you on those?

No, never.

They hated each other.

The marriage was gone

and my father wanted a divorce,

my mother fought all the way up to Hitler

and Hitler forbade my father the divorce

'til after the war.

She... She actually contacted Hitler?

Yes, by letter.

She didn't come personally to him

but she wrote a letter, a letter including

a picture of her and the five children.

And the consequence of that was

that Hitler did what? Hitler instructed...

He forbade. Hitler forbade

Frank the divorce 'til after the war.

And why did your father just not ignore that?

He loved Hitler more than his family.

(HANS SPEAKING GERMAN)

My father,

he wrote a letter and wrote, uh,

I am seeing mountains of corpses,

"lam going into the dark

please don't accompany me,

give me the divorce.

He's using the final solution

to persuade Brigitte to give him a divorce

and she says no.

By the way, if she would have said yes,

we would still keep the show of...

Niklas and Horst,

two men We come to know

whose fathers were very senior

in the Nazi hierarchy.

Hans Frank started as Hitlers personal lawyer

and then ruse to be Governor-Genera!

of occupied Wand.

Otto von Wchter

was only a notch or two down,

he was one of Hans Frank's deputies.

First the Governor of Krakow,

then the Governor of district Galicia.

What a beautiful castle,

full of criminals at this time.

Everybody of those servants,

of those German staff of the government

who worked also here,

they knew exactly

that no day passes by

that we not committed

the most horrible crimes.

My father always wanted to please Hitler

so he gave a sh*t about really

about the fate of the Jews

or about the fate of the Polish people.

Ah, here it is.

For me it was the most special room

in the whole of the Wawel

because it was a bath

I have never seen before or afterwards.

I always, it was one of my dreams

to have a bath like this,

going down two steps

but this was the only gentle experience

I had with my father.

I came in through this door, very small,

and my father was standing here shaving

and he saw me

and gave a little bit of his shaving foam

onto my nose

and that was the only gentle moment

between him and me which I remember.

And you can see that I remember

how much I was longing

for the love of my father,

otherwise it's quite a normal procedure.

But it burned my soul,

it was the only gentle moment.

Wonderful bathroom.

Why do you think your father

had so little affection for you?

Because he didn't, hmm,

didn't think that I am his son

but the son of his best friend Karl Lasch.

Who was your mother's lover?

At the time, hmm... she could have conceived.

But later I think he believed my mother

that I am his son.

He was five to ten times better educated

for instance than me.

He knew Goethe's Faust by heart

and also most of the plays of Shakespeare.

As if it was Hans Frank's

own procession, huh?

Unbelievable.

I am really happy

that this painting has survived

and is back where it belongs to.

Leonardo Da Vinci's portrait of Cecilia Gallerani

was one of the most famous paintings

in the wand.

Hans Frank took it from a Polish museum

created b y the Czartoryski family

and kept it with him throughout the war.

Do you remember that?

Yes, that I remember

because I thought it was a rat.

- Ermine.

- Ermine.

it's the Lady with Ermine

and the painter Leonardo Da Vinci

described it as a painting that should instill

in any person who looked at it,

feelings of love.

Not to my father.

On a stolen castle, in a stolen country

it makes me really angry.

And there's no sense of pride on your part

that in some way

it could be said that your father's actions

did protect this work?

No, no.

I could not forgive him

he was bought up as a catholic

and he studied law in the Weimar democracy.

So he knew by heart

what was right, what was wrong.

And he went on and on 'til, to the gallows

because I think he was too much of a coward.

He knew that he's committing crimes

and, hmm, he never

had the bravery to say,

"OK, Mr. Hitler, that's it. "

As a family of one of the defendants

we have got the chance

to visit our father in Nuremberg.

First thing what I saw was

Mr. Hermann Goering on the opposite side,

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