The Holocaust, international law and a family's fate intersect in one Eastern European city
Photo of Philippe Sands by AP Images.
a painful past
Such a story would be incomplete without a villain. For that role, Sands offers up Hans Frank, a lawyer who began to defend members of the Nazi Party in Germany in the late 1920s and was Adolf Hitler’s personal lawyer through much of the 1930s, including Hitler’s first years as German chancellor.
After Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939, Hitler appointed Frank as governor-general of German-occupied Poland. In that position, Frank was responsible for implementing the Final Solution there, a task he carried out efficiently and enthusiastically, all while living in comfort at the historic Wawel Castle in Krakow and hoarding some of Poland’s greatest works of art.
Frank was captured by the U.S. Army in 1945 and indicted for war crimes. He was one of the defendants convicted at Nuremberg, and he was executed by hanging in October 1946. Sands says Frank’s actions led to the deaths of the families of Lauterpacht, Lemkin and members of his own family.
Sands’ work also led to the production of a documentary film. In 2013, while he was still writing the book, Sands published an article in the Financial Times that described his work. The story focused on the struggles of Niklas Frank, Hans Frank’s son, and Horst von Wächter—the son of one of Frank’s key subordinates, Otto von Wächter—coming to terms with the actions of their fathers during World War II. While Frank has condemned his father, von Wächter has not been able to disown his.
Frank was 7 years old the last time he was with his father, who was being held in a Nuremberg prison awaiting his execution. “I can’t forgive my father,” Frank says. “This I can’t do, and this I will never do.”
Nor can he maintain his relationship with von Wächter. “I’m not his friend anymore because he’s defending his father in the most stupid way,” Frank says. “He should at least acknowledge that our fathers were both guilty.”
Bringing Their STORY TO OTHERS
The Financial Times piece caught the attention of David Evans, a British film director whose credits include Downton Abbey. He has been friends with Sands since they went to Cambridge together, where Sands directed him in a student play.
“The stories of Horst and Niklas were extraneous to the book, but they were compelling,” Evans says.
Soon Evans and Sands were traveling to Bavaria to see Frank; the only other member of the crew was a cinematographer. “Initially, we set our sights on something very humble—the testimony of these two men,” Evans says. “At least it would be something for the archives. I changed my view on day one. As a director, you can see when something will grab an audience.”
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy (in Britain, the title is My Nazi Legacy) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in early 2015. It played at a number of other festivals (winning the best feature award at the Jerusalem Film Festival) before it was released later that year to the general public. PBS also broadcast it.
The most compelling person in the film might be von Wächter, whom Evans credits for exposing himself to sometimes fierce criticism from Sands and Frank. “His view was that his father was a good man caught in a bad system,” Evans says. “He has a very peculiar moral compass, but one that’s been consistent throughout his life.”
Evans says the documentary process changed his attitude toward the law. “I never actually pondered what lawyers and judges do until working on the film,” he says. “I feel like I understand much more the need for legal process and the courts.”
Sands agrees that the project was an experience that caused him to think about the purpose and future of international law.
“It’s a work in progress,” he says. “As Winston Churchill said about democracy, it may not be perfect, but it’s the best system we’ve got. As I tell my students, it’s a long, long game.”
James Podgers, a former ABA Journal assistant managing editor, is a lawyer and freelance writer in Chicago. This article first appeared in the September 2017 ABA Journal with the headline “Crossroads of History.”
