Becomes an educational center

US foundation buys Auschwitz commandant’s house

The house of the former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß(Bild: AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

A US foundation against extremism has bought the former villa of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss. The house, which stands right next to the former German extermination camp, is to become a research and education center.

According to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), the focus will be on the fight against anti-Semitism and extremism. The foundation is supported in its project by UNESCO, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The seemingly idyllic private and family life of war criminal Rudolf Höss was recently the subject of the Oscar-nominated Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest". Höß moved into the official villa in 1940; his wife Hedwig described the house as a "paradise". The extermination camp began directly behind the garden wall, the barracks of which can also be seen from the rooms.

A piano in Höß' former house(Bild: AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

Today's Auschwitz Museum(Bild: AFP/Wojtek Radwanski)

The villa is not located on the site of today's memorial and was previously in private Polish ownership. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it is now being made accessible to the public for the first time.

Höß extradited and sentenced to death
Around 1.1 million people died here between 1940 and 1945, most of them Jews. They were shot, murdered in gas chambers or died of hunger and disease.

Höß was in charge of the camp from 1940 to 1944. After the end of the war, he went into hiding but was tracked down near Flensburg, extradited to Poland and sentenced to death.