'My beautiful Auschwitz childhood': Daughter of camp commandant Rudolph Hoess describes life growing up next to a concentration camp - and how she has hidden her identity for decades

• Ingebirgitt Hannah Hoess was six when father Rudolf headed Auschwitz
• Had a 'beautiful childhood' while Holocaust happened beyond garden wall
• At least 1.2million Jews were murdered at infamous death camp in Poland
• Claims she didn't know about deaths and lived under an assumed name 
• Suffers from headaches - as her father did - when she thinks of Holocaust 

By Allan Hall for MailOnline

Published: 06:51 EST, 1 June 2015 | Updated: 14:45 EST, 1 June 2015

The daughter of Nazi death camp commander Rudolf Hoess has broken decades of silence and spoken of having to accept and conceal that her father was one of history's most prolific mass murderers.

Ingebirgitt Hannah Hoess has lived a glamorous life, working as a catwalk model in Spain and later marrying an American and working in fashion in Washington, even mixing with Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

But, living under an assumed name, she was forced to closely guard the secret of her family name and even buried her mother under a gravestone simply reading 'mom' for fear of how others would react to the revelation.

Chilling calm: Rudolf Hoess, second from the left, was the head of a camp that 'processed' up to 12,000 Jews a day but was described by his family as a calm and kind man, despite committing mass murder

Punished: Hoess was captured by British forces, taken back to Poland and the site of the Auschwitz death camp where he was hanged on gallows built in the grounds. Before he died he made a full confession about the terrible crimes he had administered there before his execution in 1947

Pretty face: The young Brigitte fled to Spain where she began modelling for fashion house Balenciaga, keeping her past to herself

Now, speaking in detail for the first time, she has revealed how she was eventually forced to accept that her father - who she's previously described as 'the nicest man in the world - was a killer and what was happening next-door as she enjoyed her idyllic family life. 

But as a father, Ingebirgitt said he even once reprimanded the children for threatening to tear down the fence, removing the veil of the atrocities, during a game of cowboys and indians and told them they should never hurt people.

In a dramatic interview with Germany's Stern Magazine, she explained for the first time how she suffered blinding headaches for year whenever she tried to think of Auschwitz, similar to those suffered by her father.

They began when her father escaped to hide out as an ordinary soldier in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein in the dying days of the war and she, her mother and brothers and sisters were hiding out in an old sugar factory in another part of the country.

'That was the worst time,' she recalled. 'British soldiers shouted at us children, demanding to know where dad was. Because the headaches started, I just sat under a tree and howled. All we knew was that papi had gone and later we were told that he had died during the war.

Hoess was, actually, captured by the British, taken back to Poland and the site of the Auschwitz death camp where he was hanged on gallows built in the grounds. Before he died he made a full confession about the terrible crimes he had administered there before his execution in 1947. 

Brought to justice: Rudolf Hoess wears headphones during his trial for crimes against humanity at National Court in Warsaw, Poland, in 1945

'Dad had his headaches too,' she recalled. 'Mama said then we should not bother him.....' 

She was six when Hoess was appointed commandant of Auschwitz. The devoted Nazi later wrote in his own diary of his pride in 'running the greatest human destruction machine of all time.' It was no idle boast.

In 2013 Ingebirgitt's past was unmasked in Washington by a newspaper. She gave a cursory interview about life in the Hoess family to the Washington Post on the proviso that her real identity was not revealed.

Her recent recount of the painful journey of remembrance was prompted by the Oskar Groening trial. Groening, 93, is currently on trial charged with aiding and abetting the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944 when he worked there as an S.S. guard - employed by her father.

She denies knowing what was happening while she enjoyed a 'beautiful childhood' while a number believed to be in excess of 1.2million Jews were murdered in the camp just beyond the garden wall.

'I did not know that, next door, these atrocities were taking place,' she told Stern. 'I never asked why there were fences and watchtowers. When you are nine and ten years old, your mind is filled with other thoughts.

'And really, would it have made a difference if I had? As small as I was? One time we threatened to tear down the fence in a cowboy and indian game but dad was very angry. He scolded us and said we should never do harm to other people.'

However, she remembers sleepwalking and remembers now seeing the smoke from the crematoria, which consumed the bodies of the dead and turned them into ash to be fed into the river, 100 metres away from a balcony on the first floor of the family house.

Liberated: A picture taken in January 1945 of children in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim showing their tatooed numbers on their arms after the liberation

'I forgot it as a fleeting nightmare. My mother was so worried that she left me a wet towel before the bed,' says Ingebrigitt.

After the war as she grew and the terrible secrets of the Holocaust spilled out, she said: 'I thought at the beginning: "it can't be!",' she said, but it became harder and harder for her to ignore the facts.

'I don't displace the memories anymore,' she said, adding that she had chosen to break her silence even though it was not easy to reconcile the contrasting memories of a 'beautiful childhood' in Auschwitz and the horrific stories of the atrocities that took place next-door to her family home.

Revealed: Brigitte Hoess has been living in anonymity in the U.S. since fleeing Germany after her father's fall

She added: 'One must accept it. It happened in our family. I am sad when I think about.' 

Her father had an obsession with order, something she inherited, and she also talked of a strict upbringing.

'If I see a picture hung wrong on the wall, I have to get up and straighten it. I get high blood pressure,' she said, adding that she also has a need to force her obsession with order on to others.

'Dad was strict when it came to etiquette,' says Ingebrigitt. 

'At the dining table, the children were allowed to speak only if they were asked. But he was never angry. At the table he spoke of family things and what we would do on weekends for excursions. But never something next door, because we never knew anything. Never.'

While the family have come to accept the atrocities that happened in Auschwitz, her musician son Ben believes that her father committed the acts under duress and out of duty to his family, as well as the Nazis.

He said: 'What happened was terrible. He did what was ordered, and if he had refused, then they would have probably killed the whole family.'

There is little doubt that Hoess valued his family. In his jailhouse memoirs, he wrote: 'I always thought I had to be constantly in service. My wife has reminded me often and often: not only to do my duty but to remember your family.'

But it is that family name that has cursed his descendants, who guard it very carefully. Ingebirgitt Hannah Hoess, known as Brigitte Höss (German spelling for Hoess), emigrated to Spain as a teenager where she met and worked for the legendary Couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga as a model. At his great fashion shows, where the wife of the Spanish dictator Franco was present, Ingebrigitt Hannah marched so confidently and straight on the runway that the Spaniard called her 'my little German soldier'.

She married an Irish-American engineer,settled down in the USA and had two children. She worked for 35 years in a fashion boutique in Washington owned by Jews.

'One day I told the managing director that I was the daughter of Rudolf Hoess,' she said. The manager informed the owners, Sally and Ernest Marx, but there were no recriminations. 

She recalled: 'She said to me: "Brigitte, you cannot help it, what he did, you were just a kid. But you have to accept that it has happened." That was the moment where I left off denying Auschwitz.'

But she knows the power of her evil name and still guards her new identity fiercely. When her mother Hedwig died in 1989 during a visit to her home she buried her under a gravestone just saying 'Mom.'

In her interview with the Washington Post in 2013, she said: 'There are crazy people out there. They might burn my house down or shoot somebody,' explaining why she continues to protect her identity and even now, in her 80s, will only be interviewed using her maiden name.

Born Inge-Brigitt Höess on August 18, 1933, her early years were spent moving from one concentration camp to another as her father moved up the ranks of Hitler's SS.

From the age of seven until 11 she lived in a villa beside Auschwitz, where her family resided in fine style.

They were waited upon by staff – many of them prisoners – and their home was decorated with furniture and artwork stolen from prisoners as they were selected for the gas chambers.

They could even see the prisoner blocks and old crematorium from an upstairs window, but Brigitte more fondly recalls visiting the horses and German shepherds at the camp.

Loving: Despite the unimaginable horror that took place under his watch, Hoess has described her father as 'the nicest man in the world'

Loving: Despite the unimaginable horror that took place under his watch, Hoess has described her father as 'the nicest man in the world'

In Washington DC Brigitte Hoess worked in a fashion fashion boutique serving prominent Washingtonians, including the wives of senators and congressmen (stock image)

Brigitte Hoess, now in her 80s, is pictured to the far left of this family photo taken she was a young girl and her father was the commandant of Auschwitz. The photo is held by her nephew Rainer Hoess, who is the one family member to go public with his distaste for the crimes his grandfather committed

In April 1945, with the war clearly lost, the family fled north. They waited for the right moment to escape to South America, but in March 1946 they were found. After testifying at Nuremberg, Höess was hanged at the gallows next to the Auschwitz crematorium.

Shunned because of their connection to the Nazi regime, Brigitte and her family spent the following years in extreme poverty.

During the 1950s she left Germany to make a new life in Spain where she worked as a model for three years with the up-and-coming Balenciaga fashion house.

In 1961 she married an Irish American engineer working in Madrid. When she confessed to him about her background he was understanding and believed she was ‘as much a victim as anybody else,’ reported The Washington Post.

Secret: The women of the Washington elite who were dressed by Hoess would have had no idea of her history. Actress Elizabeth Taylor, pictured left, poses for the crowds and Hillary Clinton, right, dances with Bill

They agreed upon an ‘unspoken and unwritten agreement’ not to talk about her family background.

His work took them to Liberia, Greece, Iran and Vietnam before they moved – together with a young daughter and son – to Washington in 1972.

Initially Brigitte struggled to adapt to her new life, but it helped the she had found a part-time job in a fashion boutique.

For more than 30 years Brigitte Hoess was a sales assistant at the well known Saks Jandel store.

The upscale store's clientele included wives of several presidents, prominent Washington socialites and Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor.

As one of the most trusted and experienced sales staff until her retirement eight years ago, it is very likely Hoess would have come into contact with the First Ladies.

Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush are all known to have shopped at the upscale fashion store.

Defiant: Rudolf Hoess boasted at the Nuremberg trials that he 'ran the greatest extermination centre of all time'

Imprisoned: Children behind a barbed wire fence at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz

They would have had no idea that the sales assistant with a thick German accent dressing them was hiding such a dark family secret.

She lived in a $650,000 house in Northern Virginia but many of her neighbours had no idea that her father played such a key role in the Holocaust or that she spent her childhood at Auschwitz and other death camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen.

Some who do, defended her however. One said: 'The only time she leaves the house is to go to the hospital. Her son drives her there once a week.

'We all knew she was from Germany but no one guessed what her real identity would be. To be honest it would not change our opinion of her as she was just a child. She cannot decide who her father is.'

Hoess helped dress not just First Ladies but some of the most wealthy and powerful women at one of the best known fashion stores close to the US capital.

In a 2009 obituary in The Washington Post newspaper for its owner Ernest Marx, it focused on how his store - on D.C.'s 'mini-Fifith Avenue' - attracted many of the A-list names among the Washington elite because it showcased the latest European fashions from some of the most sought-after designers.

Slaughter: Hoess is ashamed of her father's deeds but has also questioned that if six million Jews perished in the Holocaust: 'How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed?

Archive footage shows prisoners inside Auschwitz camp

Marx had forged close relationships with Yves Saint Laurent, Valentini and Karl Largerfield. Today it is still well known as a supplier of Vera Wang bridal gowns.

Marx, who died from cancer, is understood to be one of only two people Hoess confided in about her father.

Not long after she was hired, she confessed her family background to her bosses Ernest and Sally. Fortunately for Brigitte, the owner told her that she understood that she had not committed any crime herself and she ended up working at the same boutique for the next 35 years.

Brigitte and her husband divorced in 1983 and her daughter is dead, but her son lives with her. She sees her grandchildren often but as yet has not been able to bring herself to discuss her dark secret because she doesn't want to upset them.

She tells The Washington Post that her mother used to visit her in Washington from the 1960s up until the late 1980s when she died while staying with her and as a result she is buried somewhere in Northern Virginia.

Her other siblings live in Germany, although one brother is dead. One family member who has made public that he is related to Hoess, is her nephew Rainer, who once told Harding: 'If I knew where my grandfather was buried, I would piss on his grave.'

Brigitte has spent much of her life afraid to talk about her father and even though she knows what he did was terribly wrong, she does remember him fondly.

'He was the nicest man in the world,' she said. 'He was very good to us.'

When she is told about an incident at the camp, when her father was spoken to by a pregnant Jewish woman on her way to the gas chamber with her children, she has had enough. 'That's it, I have heard enough,' she says. 'I heard everything I need to know. He did what he did.'

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