what rudolf hÖss did was refine the techniques of mass killing. felt they were too inefficient at treblinka. so he took the gas chambers and scale them up here to an industrial level. it's really only when you're inside the gas chamber that you get a sense of the horror of this place. more than a million people were killed here, but 900,000 of them died on the very first day that they arrived. back inside the property. everything was done to obscure the sights and the sounds of what was happening just next door. so trees had been grown along the wall so that no one inside the house had to see or understand or know about the horror next door. the point of the house now, though, is going to be to shed light. >> we're standing in an ordinary house, quite warm, i might add, while the while those that suffered over there froze. in a winter like this, the ordinary cannot be extreme. we want to take this place and make sure that extremism is no longer ordinary. the first thing that we did was, okay, we have to open this house to everyone. and symbolicall

overlooking auschwitz i, it was the home of the nazi commandant rudolf hoss and his family.he family is depicted in the oscar—winning film a zone of interest. his wife called the house of paradise. the house from where her husband planned the murder of 1.1 million people. the top floor of the house was built by prisoners to house the rapidly expanding family of rudolf hoss, including the fifth child he was born in this house, so much was done to shield the children from what was happening right next door, including thrusting the windows and so they couldn't see out. but if you had opened a window, just beyond the trees you can see here is the gas chamber at auschwitz i, where up to 600 prisoners to be murdered in just 20 minutes. and the elaborate deception continued. behind this white ball, the family had a huge garden with a playground and a swimming pool. and beyond that is auschwitz i. guards were told to start up their car and motorbike engines to mask the noise of the horror that was unfolding in the gas chambers. foryears, a that was unfolding in the gas chambers. for

what rudolf hÖss did was refine the techniques of mass killing.'d felt they were too inefficient at treblinka, so he took the gas chambers and scaled them up here to an industrial level. it's really only when you're inside the gas chamber that you get a sense of the horror of this place. more than a million people were killed here, but 900,000 of them died on the very first day that they arrived. back inside the property. everything was done to obscure the sights and the sounds of what was happening just next door. so trees had been grown along the wall so that no one inside the house had to see or understand or know about the horror next door. the point of the house now, though, is going to be to shed light. >> we're standing in an ordinary house, quite warm, i might add, while the while those that suffered over there froze in a winter like this, the ordinary cannot be extreme. >> we want to take this place and make sure that extremism is no longer ordinary. the first thing that we did was, okay, we have to open this house to everyone. and symbol

the focus is not on those who suffered at auschwitz but on the perpetrators, chief among them rudolf hosse nazi commandant of the camp, who lived with his wife and children a seemingly blissful life in a house adjacent to the concentration camp, just a short distance from the crematoriums. i felt that the film had to be about this place, and also had to sort of blur the line between then and now. i have to say, it's rather unnerving to be inside this former concentration camp here at auschwitz, and the building right behind me was the real home of the former commandant of auschwitz. one of the things that's incredibly powerful with jonathan glazer's film, the zone of interest, is how he uses sound to convey the horror of the concentration camp. you hear the noises of hoss�*s children playing joyfully in the garden just back here, combined with the suffering coming out of these buildings. people in pain. gunfire. the juxtaposition of these sounds is truly horrifying and very powerful cinema. it conveys all the horrors from behind the wall. we don't show it. the sound, which is absolutely a