The key theme this Ash Wednesday is that ashes symbolise death and penitence. Recent events in Israel have reminded us of the continual plight of the Jewish people. The ashes of the Holocaust emphasise wrongful death on a scale that is all but unimaginable and incomprehensible.
Just as incomprehensible is whether within those terrible ashes that the Nazis left behind there could be any chance of redemption for the perpetrators of one of the greatest crimes ever against humanity.
This quandary is brought to mind by Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest, which follows Rudolf Hoess – commandant of Auschwitz – and his family as they go about their day-to-day business while living next door to the infamous Nazi death camp.
The film is a harrowing though absorbing study in evil, but it is incomplete in a crucial way. It leaves out how Hoess returned to his Catholic faith and sought absolution for his appalling sins and key role in that crime against humanity.
