Martin Amis (2014 [2024]) The Zone of Interest.

The Zone of Interest was re-published posthumously after the success of the film of the same name. I wrote notes for both. But I’m not sure what I’ve done with them, which is of no interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zone_of_Interest_(film)

The film version of the book, directed by Jonathan Glazier is an account of family life.  Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller) is proud of her family home. She and her five children have everything they need, including servants and a gardener. Her mother, when she comes to stay, notes how well her daughter had done and how much she has come up in the world.

Her husband, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is an overworked bureaucrat. As commander of Auschwitz concentration camp (the zone of interest) he spends much of days murdering tens of thousands of men, women and children before lunch. Like any other bureaucrat he’s looking to improve efficiency.

His success means promotion. He’s loath to tell his wife, because she loves her home. They reach a compromise. He’ll work away from home and return when he’s squared it with his superiors. After all, the Hungarian patriots are sending 700 000 Jews to be processed. He’ll need to be there to ensure mass murder meets its targets. There was a cartoonish sequence which was meant to symbolise something.

Martin Amis’s novel is more a straightforward love story. Mrs Hannah Doll was married at eighteen to the Old Boozer. That’s what Boris Etz calls the Commandant. He works on the ramp. Providing security on the selection process. He won the Iron Cross, First Class, twice for his valour on the Eastern Front, but senior officers demoted him and sent him to work in the concentration camp due to his infamous short temper and frequent punch-ups.

Etz is confidant to Angelus Thomsen, who is the prototype for the master-race. But Thomson is not in uniform. He’s a bureaucrat, but most folk in the know assume he works for Abwehr. His uncle is Martin Bormann, who has the ear of Hitler. Thomson is Nazi royalty and addicted to shagging. Both he and Boris had slept with Nazi guard, Ilse Grese, who is a bit rough and mostly ready for a few knickerknacks.  

Thomsen has set his mark much higher. His aim is to seduce the Commandant’s wife. But she’s always been watched. He’s always been watched too.

Late 1943. Heinrich Himmler issued a directive to exhume and burn the millions of bodies that have been buried and poisoned the land and water table. Admittance the war is lost.

Szmul Witness (Sonderkommandofuhrer).

‘Either you go mad in the first ten minutes,’ it is often said, ‘or you get used to it. And there is another possible outcome: you don’t go mad and you don’t get used to it.’

Read on.

https://bit.ly/bannkie