US woman reveals she is daughter of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss She confessed her identity to them but the couple kept her secret, deciding that she should not be punished for the atrocities committed by her father. Brigitte went on to serve the wives of senators and congressmen. She now suffers from cancer and did not reveal her married name for fear of reprisals. In an interview with Mr Harding, published in the Washington Post, she said: "There are crazy people out there. They might burn my house down or shoot somebody. She added: "If somebody asks about my dad, I tell them that he died in the war. It was a long time ago. I didn't do what was done. I never talk about it. It is something within me. It stays with me. At Auschwitz, where she lived from 1940 to 1944, the villa had a pond and picnic table, and she could see the prison blocks. Her mother Hedwig once described it as a "paradise" where they were waited on by cooks, nannies and chauffeurs, some of whom were inmates. The home included furnishings and art work taken from Jewish prisoners headed for the gas chambers. On Sundays Höss would take Brigitte and her four siblings to see the horses and German Shepherds. She remembered men with black-and-white striped uniforms working in the garden She still sleeps with her parents' wedding photograph above her bed, and told Mr Harding: "I'm sure he (her father) was sad inside. It is just a feeling. The way he was at home, the way he was with us, sometimes he looked sad when he came back from work. There must have been two sides to him. The one that I knew and then another.