In a meeting filled with tears and harsh memories, a Holocaust survivor comes face-to-face with the daughter of the Nazi who brutalized her in Inheritance: A Legacy of Hatred and the Journey To Change It.

The film has all the drama of a feature film, but it is a documentary about the real-life meeting of Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, who survived the horrors of the Plaszow forced labor and concentration camp near Cracow, and Monika Hertwig, the daughter of camp commandant Amon Goeth.

On Sunday, Aug. 26, an audience of more than 200 at Temple Beth Ahm in Aberdeen saw the film and met Rosenzweig, a Monroe resident who spoke of her life before, during, and after the war and her emotionally charged relationship with Hertwig.

At Plaszow, Rosenzweig, then 17, was forced to work in Goeth's luxurious villa on the camp grounds. She was "little more than a slave" who was regularly beaten and terrorized by the Nazi commandant.

Hertwig was a year old when her father was hanged as a war criminal in 1946. Until she was 13, she believed he had died a war hero.

According to the film, the truth emerged during an argument with her mother, Ruth, who told her teenage daughter that she was much like her father and would most likely come to a similar fate. Hertwig, who lives in Germany with her husband and grandson, began a quest for the truth as a means of coping with the guilt she felt upon learning of her father's crimes.

The opportunity to meet one of his victims arose courtesy of Steven Spielberg, whose film Schindler's List starred Ralph Fiennes as Goeth. James Moll, an associate of Spielberg and a founding director of his Shoah Visual History Foundation, was gathering material for the Schindler's List DVD. He contacted Hertwig, whose mother had told her about the young Jewish servant who worked in the villa during the war. Hertwig expressed a desire to meet Rosenzweig, and Moll helped bring the two together.

Rosenzweig initially was reluctant to meet with Hertwig, because the memories still evoke great pain. However, because of her respect for Spielberg, she agreed to return to the scene and speak with the commandant's daughter.

"I understood how important it was for her to find out the truth," Rosenzweig told the Temple Beth Ahm audience. "But for me, it meant reliving all the horror, all the pain, all the terror of those years. I have happy memories of my childhood in Cracow until the war broke out when I was 14. But after that, the happy years ended, and I've lived with the pain and anguish ever since."

When the two women first met at the memorial monument at Plaszow, Hertwig broke down when she saw Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig instinctively offered comfort, as the enormity of the task ahead became clearer.

"I said I would have to tell her terrible things — tragic things — and that I would have to disconnect myself when I spoke of Amon Goeth," she said in an interview with NJJN. "It's really a selfish thing for him to have had a child, who became so traumatized when she learned who her father was."

The children of the perpetrators were victims, too, Rosenzweig told NJJN. "Many struggle all through their adult lives to live with the sins of their fathers," she said. "But meeting Monika was the hardest thing I have ever done. She is the daughter of a monster — and I was the one who told her that."

Rosenzweig told Hertwig about Goeth's apparent "joy" in his work.

"He enjoyed killing and always looked content after he had personally murdered Jews or ordered his men to do it," she told NJJN. "He whistled as he walked through the camp. I wondered what could have happened to him to make him this evil. He trained two of his large dogs to rip people apart at his command. I saw this many times, and I've never understood it or forgotten any of it."

In the documentary, Hertwig says her belief system was shattered when she learned about Goeth. She asked Rosenzweig if she could possibly be a better person than her father.

"I told her she had a choice," said Rosenzweig told the audience. "She could choose not to be silent and she could choose to make that part of her life mission. She could accept the truth."

In Inheritance, the women are shown touring the villa, both overcome with emotion, and Hertwig says she saw the fear re-enter her companion's eyes.

"I told her that I wanted to face the awful memories in that villa," said Rosenzweig in the interview. "I always started to shiver when I heard Goeth's footsteps, and when I was back there with Monika, I thought the ground was going to fall away from under me. I remembered his urge to kill like an animal. He would rise at 6 a.m., go out on his balcony, and randomly fire his rifle. He felt that he was doing a good job as a Nazi, but there was something more in him — a personal and profound hatred for the Jews."

After liberation, Rosenzweig married Joseph Jonas. The couple came to the United States in 1946. They had three children, and one of their daughters accompanied Rosenzweig on her trip to Poland. Joseph Jonas, also a Holocaust survivor, took his own life in 1980.

"He left me a note that said he was haunted every day of his life," Rosenzweig told the audience. "I miss him. I've tried to be strong, and I think that I am strong. I hope he is proud of me and that he has found peace."

Her own quest for peace is an ongoing endeavor, she added.

"I haven't stayed in touch with Monika," Rosenzweig told NJJN. "She wants to be my friend, but it's too difficult for me. She has promised to tell them in Germany about what happened during the Holocaust. She's a victim too. She's scared, lost, and feels guilty. She hoped that she would find a measure of peace by meeting me. I don't think she did, but she did hear me tell her the truth."

Inheritance, directed by Moll, was released in 2006. Rosenzweig is grateful for the chance to tell the truth about a terrible time.

"It takes everything out of me to talk about it, but I'm grateful to God that I can speak for all my people who are not here to speak for themselves," she said. "I was chosen by a higher power to survive and be a messenger.

"I'm lucky to be in this country and to have had another chance at life, and I'm always aware of it."