While working on Voices From the List, a documentary about Oskar Schindler, I stumbled across several un-credited photos of Nazi commander, Amon Goeth. I soon reached out to archival sources, Jewish organizations, and Holocaust historians in the US, Europe and Israel in an attempt to find the copyright holder of the photos. After three months of tireless searching, I found an organization that told me the photos belonged to a woman named Monika Hertwig. What they said next floored me. Monika Hertwig was the daughter of Amon Goeth.
Because of how Schindler’s List shed a bright light on Monika’s father and his participation in the Holocaust, I assumed Monika wouldn’t allow us to use her photos in the documentary. I even imagined her to have completely withdrawn from ever acknowledging this history. The decision to call Monika came after a long conversation between James Moll, the director of Inheritance, and myself. We concluded it was unfair to make assumptions about Monika and how she may react. In the end, that phone call began a dialogue between James and Monika resulting in the making of Inheritance.
Nine months later, our eight-member crew boarded a plane out of Los Angeles and began documenting the dual stories of Monika Hertwig and Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, the woman Monika’s father enslaved during the Holocaust as a housemaid in his villa at the Plaszow Concentration Camp. The brief thirteen-day shoot took us to three different countries and ran on schedule despite the usual production mishaps, such as almost missing a flight due to heavy rains and flooding in New York, and the airlines misplacing our camera equipment while in route to Krakow.
We met Helen first at her home in New Jersey. Even though documentary film crews ideally maintain their objectivity and interact as little as possible with the subjects, Helen’s warmness, coupled with her own personal history, made it virtually impossible for the crew not to be drawn to her. Days later, we traveled to meet Monika at her home, roughly 50 miles from Munich. Before we started, Monika had reservations about the interview. She was anxious and said she couldn’t stop thinking about the interview her mother did in the early 1980’s which was the catalyst for her mother’s suicide. We empathized with Monika and an emotional bond towards her immediately developed. Our concern became evident, and Monika soon relaxed and eased into her interview.
Soon after, we traveled with Monika to Krakow, Poland where we met with Helen and her daughter, Vivian, the following day. Having bonded with Helen and Monika, the entire crew discussed the genuine affection we felt towards both women and how protective we felt of them. However, we realized the importance of the meeting between these women and how objectivity was critical in documenting it. We collectively agreed that during our shoot in Krakow, distance and professionalism would be maintained. And it was.
The meeting between Monika and Helen took place in one day. As the crew returned to our hotel to wrap the shoot and prepare for the departure back to the US, Helen approached me in the lobby and asked if we would please do another follow-up interview with her. She told me there was something she needed to share that she had never spoken about outside of her immediate family. Helen said it had always been too painful for her to discuss, but now having met Monika, she was ready to talk about it with us. Helen’s revelation during the interview is extremely personal and helps us understand how the events of the Holocaust still affect her life.
Monika and Helen are both truly remarkable people, and their individual and collective stories have taught me a great deal about how I choose to look at my own life. I consider myself very fortunate for having spent time with each of them and am humbled by the experience I had in documenting their stories.
- Christopher Pavlick
Producer
