Rainer Höss


Rainer Höss is the grandson of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss. He has described himself as a tolerance preacher. He is one of the co-founders of Footsteps, a Holocaust education organization.

Family

He is the son of Hans-Juergen Höss, born in 1937. He never knew his grandfather Rudolf, who was executed at Auschwitz in 1947, eighteen years before he was born. When he was 12 years old, he learned about the history of his grandfather in school. His mother divorced his father in 1983; he himself is divorced and has three children. He states:

The Holocaust

After his parents divorced, Rainer started to search historic documents in German archives to find the real history of his grandfather. He worked together with the Institute of Contemporary History. He received the rights to his grandfather’s archive, after research in Mauthausen and Buchenwald.
He participated in the documentary Hitler's Children, and has made contact with victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
From family archives and personal knowledge he testifies about the life his grandfather had in private and explains to youth, whom he visits in schools, how to see this in today's context.
During his life, he has made multiple visits to Auschwitz in person, the first time in 2009. During the visits, he talks with visitors and answers people's questions. He has stated that he would kill his own grandfather if he had the opportunity to meet him. In 2013, Holocaust survivor and public speaker Eva Mozes Kor agreed to symbolically "adopt" Rainer Höss as her grandson.
He wrote The Heritage of the Kommandant: On being part of a terrible family.

Reactions

The Israeli journalist Eldad Beck considers Rainer Höss' involvement in Holocaust issues to be "motivated by pure opportunism." Beck, who interviewed Höss for the documentary Hitler's Children, has stated that Höss "continues trying to trade with his family's belongings dating back to the Holocaust."

Books