Reality overcomes fiction. When we read a book, we expect the twists and turns of the story to be believable, but there are true stories that exceed our ability to fabricate.
Sometimes we resist believing that bad people exist. We try to justify certain attitudes by factors external to human nature: the situations that have happened to someone, personal circumstances, precariousness and drama.
However, very bad villains do exist. A very clear example is the Jewish Holocaust. Numerous literary and cinematographic adaptations have been made on the subject. Schindler’s List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, is a film in which the evil done by the Nazis in the concentration camps is brilliantly explained.
Another film that reflects the horror of the Holocaust is The Zone of Interest, shot in 2021 in Auschwitz, directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller. It is an adaptation of the novel by Martin Amis.
I once visited Auschwitz. It was a journey into pain and silence. It had never happened to me: the tourists who toured the concentration camp did not speak. We were speechless at the impact of what we saw. It is not possible to smile in Auschwitz, where pain still permeates the atmosphere, as if the imprint of evil lingers there.
Glazer’s film is set in 1943, focusing on the daily lives of Nazi commander Rudolf Höss, his wife, Hedwig, and their five children. The family lives in a house next to the concentration camp. They strive to build an idyllic life next to the wall that separates them from the horror. The father takes the children fishing. The mother takes care of the garden where flowers grow. They try to invent a paradise that confronts hell. There are no images showing the interior of the field. Everything happens outside, in the house that pretends to be a home but turns out to be macabre. The atmosphere of evil is also present in Mica Levi’s soundtrack, where the screeching of crematoriums, distant laments and anguish are mixed.
A few days ago I had the opportunity to see an interview with Sebastià Comas, the “compassionate” kidnapper of Maria Àngels Feliu, the pharmacist from Olot, kidnapped on November 20, 1992 in the garage of her house, kept in a hole in comparable conditions in which the Jews lived in a concentration camp. He was thirty-five years old, with three young children and a 492-day ordeal ahead of him. Although time has passed, this kidnapping remains in the memory of many.
Surrounded by insects, rats and her own excrement, without any possibility of showering, she demonstrated enormous human strength. “Underground, time stops”, he assured later. The kidnappers were two corrupt police officers from Olot and forest guards. Among them was Sebastià Comas, who provided her with sandwiches, allowed her to walk a few steps outside the hole and reassured her when they threatened to cut off her limbs. Was he playing good cop and bad cop at the same time? One night he dared to release her at a gas station. When Maria Àngels returned home, her children did not recognize her.
Was Comas the less evil villain or someone who was debating in an internal conflict? In the interview, he claimed that he had tried to protect her. We don’t know if it’s from others or from their fears, overwhelmed by not knowing how to control evil.
