A Nazi’s daughter meets the truth

The sky is blue, the grass is green and the two women standing in the sunshine could be old friends reunited. But they’re not. Instead the two principal characters of James Moll’s documentary “Inheritance,” which airs as part of “P.O.V.” on PBS tonight, occupy opposite sides of history’s dark mirror.

As if following the poetic edict of Carl Sandburg, this particular grass covers what remains of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland. One of the women, Helen Jonas, survived its horrors, while the other, Monika Hertwig, is the daughter of the man who inflicted many of them, Amon Goeth, who was hanged for war crimes in 1946.

Plaszow is the camp depicted in “Schindler’s List”; Goeth was the brutal, murderous commander portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. Before she saw the film, Monika, who was born in 1945 and raised in a time when few Germans even spoke about the war, knew little about the Holocaust and less about her father. When she realized he was not like the many other fathers who had simply “died during the war,” she spent years reeling from the implications. Her grandmother had told her of two young girls who had worked in her father’s villa, which overlooked the camp. Watching a television documentary about Schindler, Monika saw Helen and realized she had been one of those girls. Moll, who met Monika when he was doing a documentary on “Schindler’s List,” helped put her in touch with Helen. Monika wrote to her, asking if they could meet.

Helen was touched but did not think such a thing would be possible. Her mother had died in Plaszow while Helen was a prisoner in Goeth’s house; Helen’s boyfriend had buried her body. Goeth had shot him before he could tell her where. She had listened, shivering, as his footsteps echoed on the ceiling of her small bedroom before he took the rifle to the villa’s balcony and arbitrarily shot whomever he saw.

She did not think she could return to that place, could not imagine what she would say to his daughter.

But then time passed and she changed her mind. If peace was impossible, Helen wanted to tell the truth of what she had seen in a way that would make a difference. More than 60 years gone, and still the actions of a single man haunted two women and everyone around them.

“Inheritance” is the story, then, about the limitations of grass.

I first saw “Inheritance” at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where it reminded me how powerful a straightforward, no-frills documentary can be. No authoritative voice-over, no overpowering soundtrack, no fancy historical footage -- the story of these women’s lives is so layered and dense with hope and courage and tragedy that the best way to tell it is simply.

The camera follows them as they make their journeys to their meeting at Plaszow -- Helen from the U.S. with her daughter, Vivian, and Monika, alone, from Germany. Of the two, Monika is the more emotional, breaking down the moment she hears Helen’s voice when she calls from her hotel in Krakow. Helen is sympathetic to Monika, but her boundaries do not extend to comforting her tormentor’s daughter. “He was very selfish to have a child,” she says with breathtaking brevity, almost to herself, as she gathers her purse and sweater to leave for their meeting at the camp.

“Inheritance” raises many larger issues, some familiar, some not so much, but at its heart is the deep human need for the truth, no matter how long avoided, no matter how horrifying.

Monika, who inherited her father’s height, is bent as if with a great burden. Her tears are more frequent then Helen’s, and they are helpless tears -- she cannot, as she says, apologize for such evil; she was not even born at the time. And yet there is the responsibility of blood.

When Helen tells her Goeth was “a monster” and, as they walk through the old villa, gives examples of his brutality, there is misery on Monika’s face, but also relief. Finally she knows the truth. Not from the movies or television but from someone who was there. It is difficult to watch but also a great gift. To have such people, such stories, such moments caught on film is one of the reasons we should be thankful film was invented.

As Sandburg might have said: “I am the camera. Let me work.”

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mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

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‘P.O.V.: Inheritance’

Where: KCET

When: 8:30 tonight

Rating: TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with an advisory for violence)