Monika Hertwig

Vocation

Family

German daughter of a concentration camp commander, who co-authored a book about being the daughter of a Nazi perpetrator. Her father was Amon Göth (1908–1946), an Austrian SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II. He was tried as a war criminal after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial. He was executed by hanging on 13 September 1946 at Kraków. Göth had a two-year relationship with Ruth Irene Kalder, a beautician and aspiring actress. Kalder first met Göth in 1942 or early 1943, when she worked as a secretary at Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory in Kraków. She soon moved in with Göth and the two had an affair. She took Göth's name shortly after his death. Monika Hertwig was Göth's last child, whom he had by Kalder. In 2002, Hertwig published her memoirs under the title "Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder?" ("But I have to love my father, don't I?"). Hertwig described the subsequent life of her mother, who unconditionally glorified her fiancé until confronted with his role in the Holocaust. Ruth committed suicide in 1983, shortly after giving an interview in Jon Blair's documentary "Schindler." Hertwig's experiences in dealing with her father's crimes are detailed in "Inheritance," a 2006 documentary directed by James Moll. Hertwig also appeared in a documentary called "Hitler's Children" (2011), directed and produced by Chanoch Zeevi, an Israeli documentary filmmaker. In the documentary, Hertwig and other close relatives of infamous Nazi leaders describe their feelings, relationships, and memories of their relatives. Jennifer Teege, Hertwig's daughter by a Nigerian man, discovered that Göth was her grandfather through Hertwig's 2002 memoirs. She addressed her coming to terms with her origins in the book, "My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me" (originally published as "Amon. Mein Großvater hätte mich erschossen" in 2013). Link to Wikipedia biography (German)