Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Chanoch Ze'evi
Cast
Bettina Göring,
Katrin Himmler,
Monika Hertwig,
Rainer Höss,
Eldad Beck,
Niklas Frank
Genre
Documentary,
History,
War
Interviewing descendants of the most prominent figures and notorious war criminals under Hitler’s Nazi regime, this documentary follows the people whose surname alone evokes horror. Katrin Himmler, Rainer Höss, Niklas Frank and others reflect on their ancestors’ crimes as well as the guilt and responsibility that they now carry in their day to day lives.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Few will be unmoved by this film's subjects, including the great niece of Herman Goering and the daughter of concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth, as they relate the heavy burdens stemming from their fateful lineage.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Quiet, simple and soaked in sorrow, Hitler's Children takes a stripped-down approach to an emotionally sophisticated subject.
Variety
The sins of the fathers have seldom weighed so heavy as in the odd, intriguing and ultimately moving Hitler's Children.
Village Voice
Interweaving interviews and footage of Rainer Hess's first trip to Auschwitz, Hitler's Children is a powerful and well-judged presentation of the stories and their impossibilities.
Variety by John Anderson
The sins of the fathers have seldom weighed so heavy as in the odd, intriguing and ultimately moving Hitler's Children.
Village Voice by Michelle Orange
Interweaving interviews and footage of Rainer Hess's first trip to Auschwitz, Hitler's Children is a powerful and well-judged presentation of the stories and their impossibilities.
The A.V. Club
The subjects of Hitler's Children all speak about the actions of their infamous forebears with shame, shock, or disgust, but they also make it clear this isn't true of everyone in their families.
The A.V. Club by Alison Willmore
The subjects of Hitler's Children all speak about the actions of their infamous forebears with shame, shock, or disgust, but they also make it clear this isn't true of everyone in their families.
Los Angeles Times
Though Ze'evi's creative choices don't always serve the material — he unwisely attempts to pump up the emotional volume with an intrusive music score — his compassion for his subjects is clear, and their straightforward testimony is provocative.
Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden
Though Ze'evi's creative choices don't always serve the material — he unwisely attempts to pump up the emotional volume with an intrusive music score — his compassion for his subjects is clear, and their straightforward testimony is provocative.
Boston Globe by Mark Feeney
The moral weight of Hitler's Children is unmistakable. So is that weight's inertness.
Slant Magazine
The film drains its subjects of the shame forced on them by Nazi ancestors and yet has difficulty arriving at an effective, constructive thesis.
Slant Magazine by Nick McCarthy
The film drains its subjects of the shame forced on them by Nazi ancestors and yet has difficulty arriving at an effective, constructive thesis.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
It's always dispiriting to see an ideal subject given shallow treatment, and one spends most of this documentary wishing a more experienced director had made it.
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