WEIL DER STADT, Germany—When Auschwitz commemorates the 70th anniversary of its liberation on Jan. 27, the ceremonies will include an unlikely attendee: the grandson of the camp commandant who was held responsible for 1.1 million deaths there.
Rainer Hoess, 49 years old, has grappled with the curse of his bloodline since his teens. He has tattoos of a Star of David and of the Auschwitz numbers of several survivors he has met. He has walked the grounds of his grandfather’s villa, whose sumptuous gardens and pools were within sight of a crematorium chimney.
The liberation of Nazi concentration camps in 1945 was momentous. Images of corpses and wraithlike survivors gave rise to the concept of genocide and dispelled claims that Nazi atrocities were exaggerated. Public interest in Auschwitz is only growing, with attendance at the site—now a museum and memorial—surpassing 1.5 million last year for the first time.
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