The house at 88 Legionow Street is imposing and ugly on the outside, but functional and spacious within.

With temperatures below freezing and snow thick on the ground, visitors really notice the blast of warm air coming from the radiators when they walk through the door.

It is what Nazi mass murderer Rudolf Höss would have felt after a day of 'work' just a few feet away at Auschwitz-Birkenau – the most notorious factory of death in history.

The warmth reminds visitors that while Höss and his family had all the ordinary home comforts and more besides, the Jewish victims who were suffering and dying just a few hundred feet away had nothing but hope and luck. 

The former home of the Holocaust death camp commandant stands on a busy road in what is – to give its authentic, Polish name – the town of Oświęcim.

Now, more than eight decades on from when Höss, his wife Hedwig and their five children lived in what they called 'paradise', it is set to receive public visits for the first time – and MailOnline has been given a chilling tour inside ahead of its opening.

With the previous Polish occupant having moved out last August after more than four decades there, the home – which was depicted in 2023 film The Zone of Interest – has been stripped back to its basic furnishings.

Now the property is set to be turned into a weapon for good after being bought by the US-based Counter Extremism Project, who will transform it into a key pillar of their bid to combat radicalisation and violence. 

But, before that work begins, chilling evidence of the Höss family's occupation still remains.  

During the initial clear-out just a few weeks ago, a pair of striped prisoner trousers that were once worn by an Auschwitz inmate were found plugging a hole in the wall in the attic.

Added to that discovery was a Nazi newspaper dated December 1944, handwritten household notes, a child's doodles, a stamp with Adolf Hitler's head on it, an empty German cigarette box and a mug branded with the seal of the Waffen SS. 

We added to the haul during our visit by chancing upon a scrap of Nazi literature in a small space in the attic that was covered up by a tiny door.

The trousers are believed to belong to a female political prisoner. Expert researchers are set to try to work out who wore them by deciphering a barely visible prisoner number.

Also on the fabric is a yellow star to designate that the wearer was a Jew.  

The home's former occupant, Grazyna Jurczak, 62, raised both her sons at the property.

She then sold her stake in the house to the Counter Extremism Project and now lives nearby.

Her former home will be opened to visitors for the first time on January 27, exactly 80 years on from the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces.

The 'freedom' for the barely alive inmates who were still at the sprawling network of camps that fell under the Auschwitz umbrella (most had been forced on 'death marches' towards Germany) came after 1.1million Jewish men, women and children had been murdered.

Under a project that will be known as 'Archer at House 88', CEP will turn Höss's former home into an exhibition space focused on countering extremism.

The central idea behind the project is the notion of the 'house next door' - that extremism can be found behind the walls of any 'ordinary' home.

The interior of the property is set to be entirely stripped out and turned into what CEP has described as a 'void-like space' that will continue to support the original exterior.

A plan for the renovation is set to be drawn up by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. 

Former US diplomat Mark Wallace, the chief executive of CEP, told MailOnline inside the home: 'Nothing here is about memorialising the monstrosity that occurred here. 

'I want people to come to this house, look at Rudolf Höss's name one time, call it House 88, look at our exhibition displays, click on the QR code and join us.

'We can confront extremism in our midst. This is the house next door.' 

He added: 'This is the ultimate house next door. And that is why the "banality of evil" is not relevant to me. I want to end it.'

The 'banality of evil' was philosopher Hannah Arendt's way of describing the way ordinary people can commit horrifying acts. 

It was a concept at the heart of the Zone of Interest. But Mr Wallace, who served in the administration of George W Bush, wants to leave deep-thinking philosophy to the philosophers and instead focus on the future. 

He added: 'For 80 years we have been taught to never forget, because this should be enough.

'But I will tell you, never forget is not enough. It's not that I don't believe in remembrance, but Elie Wiesel famously said in 1986, sometimes we must interfere and take action.'

The original idea to turn Höss's home into a weapon against extremism came from Polish educator Jacek Purski, who has spent his life working to counter radicalisation.

He then approached the CEP, who backed the project.

Mr Purski, who now works at CEP, wants the house and Archer to be a 'global change-maker'. 

He added: 'The most important story of this is that the world, in a couple of years, will benefit and become a safer place. 

'We hope that the work we will do will help to fight anti-Semitism and terrorism. This is the most important thing.' 

Dr Hans-Jakob Schindler, a senior director at CEP is intimately involved in the project, said: 'The challenge here is that you must not make this house into a memorial to Hoss. It is not going to be just the house.

'It is going to be the house as part of the centre. 

'The house is the focal point that focuses the mind of all the visitors saying, "this is a super ordinary house, this could be a house in my neighbourhood."'

The CEP has also bought the adjacent post-war home and has struck a deal with the Auschwitz Museum to reconnect the Höss house with what was once the commandant's walled sauna, garden and greenhouse.

Hedwig Höss used to delight in showing visitors around her garden, where she grew vegetables and beautiful flowers.

The space is currently used by local residents and museum employees as a vegetable-growing plot.   

Although it will soon be transformed, the structure of the house is currently exactly the same as it was in the 1940s. 

The interior decoration has changed somewhat, but the main bathroom – complete with the green tiles that were described by the Höss family's housekeeper, 'his and hers' medicine cabinets and the door lock bearing the German words for free and occupied – is still in its original state.

Immediately to the right inside the front door is the flight of steps down to the chilling basement, which continues to frighten visitors.

Höss would go down there daily to use a short tunnel that would take him to his office inside the camp's walls.

Although the tunnel has long since been filled in on the camp side, much of its length remains.

A sink and taps next to the tunnel entrance may be familiar to readers, for it was there that a scene in the Zone of Interest featuring Christian Friedel as Höss was filmed.

The on-screen version of the Nazi monster was seen washing his hands at the sink after raping a female inmate. He then climbed into bed with his wife.   

The bulk of the film was shot at another property nearby.

On a wall near the tunnel are what appear to be boat hooks – which Höss and his family may have used to store canoes that would have come in handy at the local river a short distance away.

They are known to have enjoyed the water there during the summer months, with the young children oblivious to the horrors that were unfolding so close by.

The rest of the basement is a series of run-down empty rooms with damp floors that match the footprint above. 

Back upstairs, the date that the property was built – 1937 – is inscribed in the stone floor.

The home was constructed for a Polish military officer serving in the adjacent camp, which was seized by the Nazis after their invasion of Poland in September 1939.

The Germans then turned it into the sprawling network of more than 40 concentration and extermination camps that were at the heart of the Nazi killing machine.

Höss was appointed commandant of Auschwitz, in the west of Nazi-occupied Poland, in May 1940, when it housed political prisoners.

He then went on to perfect and test techniques for mass murder, leading to the construction of four large gas chambers and crematoria across Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II, and Birkenau.

Although he was replaced as camp commandant in 1943 after being promoted, Höss's wife and children continued living at the villa.

Höss then returned to Auschwitz in May 1944 to oversee the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews in less than three months.

The original interior of the house was described vividly by Polish housekeeper Aniela Bednarska in her diary, which also detailed how some of the furniture in the home was made by camp prisoners. 

In words first revealed by historian Ian Baxter, who visited the home in 2007, she wrote that the living room comprised of 'black furniture, a sofa, two armchairs, a table, two stools, and a standing lamp.

'There was Höss's study, which you could enter either from the living room or the dining room.

'The room was furnished with a big desk covered with a transparent plastic board under which he kept family pictures, two leather armchairs, a long narrow bookcase covering two walls and filled with books.

'One of its sections was locked. Höss kept cigarettes and Vodka there.

'The furniture was matte, nut-brown, made by camp prisoners.

'The dining room was decorated with dark nut-brown furniture made in the camp, an unfolding table, six leather chairs, a glazed cupboard for glassware, a sideboard and a beautiful plant stand.

'The furniture was solid and tasteful,' she added.

Describing Höss and his wife's bedroom, she wrote: 'The room had two dark nut-brown beds, a four-winged wardrobe made in the camp and used by Höss, and a lighter wardrobe with glass doors used by Mrs Höss.

'There was also a sort of couch – hollowed and leather. Above the beds there was a big colourful oil painting depicting a bunch of field flowers.' 

According to Mr Baxter, the attic was converted in 1942 into servant quarters. 

The floor below was the family's bedrooms. One of the children's rooms overlooked the camp's administration buildings.

The unencumbered view out of the window would have revealed the chimney of the camp's crematorium, but Höss is said to have had an earth mound built to stop his children from seeing it. 

The Höss brood was made up of eldest boy Klaus, daughters Edeltraut, Brigitte and Annegret and youngest child Hans-Jürgen, who is now in his late 80s. 

Last year, he was seen in documentary The Commandant's Shadow describing how he had a 'lovely, idyllic childhood' next to Auschwitz.

His brother Klaus was described as 'naughty and malicious' by the housekeeper of another member of the SS.

She described how he used to carry a 'small horsewhip' which he used to beat prisoners who worked at the house.

'He always sought the opportunity to kick or hit a prisoner,' she added.

As for Höss himself, even though he was directing the killing of thousands of Jews each day, he still found the time to rape female inmates. 

And Eleonore Hodys, an Austrian political prisoner at Auschwitz, described in testimony given in 1944 how Höss became 'strikingly interested' in her. 

'He did all he could to favour me and make my detention much easier,' she added.

She then described how Höss then kissed her when they were alone.

'The commandant expressed his particular feelings for me for the first time in May 1942. His wife was out and I was in his villa, sitting by the radio,' she explained.

'Without a word, he came over and kissed me. I was so surprised and frightened and ran away and locked myself in the toilet.

She added: 'From then on, I did not come to the commandant's house anymore. I reported myself as sick and tried to hide from him whenever he asked for me.

'Though he succeeded time and again in finding me, he never spoke about the kiss. I only ever visited the house twice more, by order.'

The family left Auschwitz in November 1944, when Höss moved to Ravensbrück women's concentration camp north of Germany's capital Berlin, to oversee further extermination of political prisoners and Jews. 

After Nazi Germany's defeat, Höss evaded capture for nearly a year. 

He was finally caught after British troops interrogated his wife, who had been found with her children at a sugar factory in southern Germany.

She initially insisted that her husband was dead, but after six days of questioning admitted that he was still alive and gave her interrogators his address.

Höss had been living and working at a farm under an alias but admitted his true identity very quickly.

When, at his trial at Nuremburg, he was accused of murdering three and a half million people, he replied: 'No. Only two and one half million—the rest died from disease and starvation.'

After he was sentenced to death in 1947, prosecutors agreed to demands from former Auschwitz prisoners that he be hanged at the camp.

His execution took plate on April 16, 1947, as men and women who had once suffered under him watched. 

Once the CEP's project is completed, visitors to the house will be asked to surrender their smartphones before touring the property.

Instead, they will be offered the chance to take a photograph using a camera fitted with a lens that the CEP believes was made by Holocaust victim Lore Sternfeld, who died at Auschwitz.

Sternfeld, who was Jewish, worked in Berlin making optical equipment until she was deported to Auschwitz in 1943.

Mr Wallace said: 'I want to make Lore Sternfeld famous. 

'She was a 33-year-old girl, living in an apartment in Berlin, making these lenses, trying to get by, until they discovered she was a Jew and deported her to Auschwitz.

'And who killed her? This monster [Hoss].'

The ultimate aim is to collect six million images to match the number of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.