- .Brigitte Hoss, 80, has kept family secret for most of her life
- .She worked at Saks Jandel boutique in D.C. for decades where many of the country's wealthiest women went to buy clothes
- .Lives in $650,000 house in Northern Virginia with her son - a well-known Jazz fusion drummer in the city
- .As a child Hoss lived in a villa beside Auschwitz where her father was the Kommandant
- .She escaped Germany and worked briefly as a model for the Balenciaga fashion house in Madrid in the 1950s
- .Although ashamed of what her father did, she remembers him as 'the nicest man in the world'
- .She also questions the number of people he murdered: 'How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed?'
The daughter of the Nazi monster who ran Auschwitz concentration camp worked at a fashion store where First Ladies Hillary Clinton and Nancy Reagan regularly shopped, MailOnline can reveal today.
For more than 30 years Brigitte Hoss, now 80, was a sales assistant at the well known Saks Jandel store.
The upscale store's clientele included wives of several presidents, prominent Washington socialites and Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor.
As one of the most trusted and experienced sales staff until her retirement eight years ago, it is very likely Hoss would have come into contact with the First Ladies.
Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush are all known to have shopped at the upscale fashion store.
They would have had no idea that the sales assistant with a thick German accent dressing them was hiding such a dark family secret.
Shame: Brigitte Hoss has been living in hiding in America since fleeing Europe after her Nazi father's execution in 1947 for his part in the extermination of 1.1m Jews at Auschwitz
Forgiveness: Hoss worked for decades at the DC Saks Jandel store of Ernest Marx (center) whose Jewish family fled the Nazis in 1938. It is believed the Marx family knew of her dark past and helped her keep it secret
Only two people at the store - which was run by a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in 1938 after the bloody Kristallnacht attacks on Jewish businesses - were aware of her past.
When approached by MailOnline at her $650,000 home in Northern Virginia, Hoss - who has recently been diagnosed with cancer, refused to comment.
Many of her neighbours have no idea that her father played such a key role in the Holocaust or that she spent her childhood at Auschwitz and other death camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen.
Some who do, defended her however. One said: 'The only time she leaves the house is to go to the hospital. Her son drives her there once a week.
'We all knew she was from Germany but no one guessed what her real identity would be. To be honest it would not change our opinion of her as she was just a child. She cannot decide who her father is.'
Hoss lives with her jazz musician son at the house which looks out onto a quiet, tree-lined street.
The view is in stark contrast to the one she had while growing up as the daughter of Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz death camp where at least 1.1 million Jews were killed.
Dressing the rich and famous: The store was a favorite of Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush and Elizabeth Taylor
Secret: The women of the Washington elite who were dressed by Hoss would have had no idea of her history
Hoss kept the secret about her father, and living in the shadow of the gas chambers - where up to 2,000 people a day were murdered - for over 40 years since her move to the U.S. in 1972.
Her identity was partially revealed when she gave an interview to author Thomas Harding for his book detailing the hunt and capture of Rudolf Hoss by his great uncle Hanns Alexander.
Hoss agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her current name and exact location were never revealed. Harding used her maiden name for his book and article for the Washington Post.
But he gave other clues in describing her Irish American engineer husband and revealing she had a son and daughter, who has died. He also said she worked for the owner of a fashion store who fled Nazi Germany.
When contacted by MailOnline at his home in Hampshire, England, he politely declined to say how he found Hoss other than to say it took him three years to find her.
Unique childhood: Brigitte, pictured laughing on the left, grew up in a villa next to the notorious death camp Auschwitz
...now she lives in this house in northern Virginia, with her 44-year-old son and grandchildren
MailOnline was able to track down Hoss using records that are all publicly available.
As well as the home in northern Virginia, Hoss also owns a condo close to the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Until her cancer diagnosis she regularly flew down to Florida to meet up with her sister Annegret who still lives in Germany.
Hoss helped dress not just First Ladies but some of the most wealthy and powerful women at one of the best known fashion stores close to the US capital.
In a 2009 obituary in The Washington Post newspaper for its owner Ernest Marx, it focused on how his store - on D.C.'s 'mini-Fifith Avenue' - attracted many of the A-list names among the Washington elite because if showcased the latest European fashions from some of the most sought-after designers.
Marx had forged close relationships with Yves Saint Laurent, Valentini and Karl Largerfield. Today it is still well known as a supplier of Vera Wang bridal gowns.
Marx, who died from cancer, is understood to be one of only two people Hoss confided in about her father.
In an interview at the weekend published in the Washington Post, Harding said that much to her astonishment she was allowed to stay on at the store after the Jewish owner discovered her identity.
Pretty face: The young Brigitte fled to Spain where she began modelling for fashion house Balenciaga, keeping her past to herself
Loving: Despite the unimaginable horror that took place under his watch, Hoss has described her father as 'the nicest man in the world'
Peter Marx, the son of the store owner, refused to comment when contacted at his Potomac home.
Staff at the store also refused to make any comment referring all comments to the Human Resources Department. A spokesman said: 'We do not talk about our employees past or present.'
Hoss's son is a well-known Jazz fusion drummer in the D.C. area and has many videos on YouTube showing off his talents. The Nazis pursued and tried to shut down Jazz clubs in Hitler's Germany, partly because of its African American roots and because many of its chief figures were Jews.
He has no interest in finding out or talking about his grandfather - but he is understood not to have told his two children, who are both aged under 11, about the wartime atrocities committed by their great-grandfather.
Hoss was hanged in 1947 after being tracked down by a German Jew serving with the British army called Hanns Alexander.
Hoss last saw her father in April 1945 as the concentration camps were liberated and the full scale of the horrors inflicted in them were revealed to a shocked world for the first time.
She took refuge with her mother and siblings in coastal village in Northern Germany. Her father assumed the identity of a laborer until he was tracked down by Alexander.
He had planned to flee with other Nazis to South America - but was captured before he could put the escape plan into action.
After being forced to appear at the Nuremberg war trials he was executed by the Polish army who hanged him on gallows next to the Auschwitz crematorium.
Slaughter: Hoss is ashamed of her father's deeds but has also questioned that if six million Jews perished in the Holocaust: 'How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed?'
Defiant: Rudolf Hoss boasted at the Nuremberg trials that he 'ran the greatest extermination center of all time'
His daughter fled to Spain with the rest of the family where she modeled for the fashion house Balenciaga. Photographs from the time show her as a striking blonde.
In 1961, she wed an Irish-American and after living abroad for most of the sixties settled in the D.C. area in 1972. She has since divorced.
She was poached from her first fashion job to work for Saks Jandel where she stayed until her retirement.
Author Thomas Harding told MailOnline that he met Hoss on at least ten occasions after tracking her down. He said she still struggled to comprehend the atrocities committed by her father with the man she knew and loved.
He said that even almost 70 years after the end of the war she still lived in fear that she could be the victim of reprisals because of her father.
'She expressed fear, and that fear I believe is genuine,' he said. Harding said Hoss has fond memories of her father but knows there were two sides to him.
'She remembers him as a loving father but she is also very aware of what took place. She does struggle to understand that.'
Speaking from his home in Petersfield, Hampshire, UK, Harding said Hoss should not be blamed for her father's sins. 'She was just a child and no way responsible,' he said. 'That is a view taken by many people.'
Harding has detailed the hunt for Rudolf Hess by his great uncle in a book called Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew who tracked down and caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz.
Hoss agreed to co-operate with the book and in an interview with Harding spoke fondly of her father, describing him as the 'nicest man in the world.'
Hoss admitted that despite living in the DC area for over 40 years she has never visited the Holocaust museum.
She also questioned that six million Jews perished in the Holocaust, saying: 'How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed.'
When asked about her father, she told people that he had died in the war.
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