My name is Kai Hewes.

My name is Kai Hewes.

I am standing here, before you, with the family legacy that brings with it an immense burden and responsibility.

I am the grandson of Rudolf Heurz, the notorious commandant of Auschwitz, who is responsible for the cold-blooded industrial murder of 1.2 million

Jewish people and countless others.

I'm Sharoma Silva, and this is the documentary on the BBC World Service.

For this episode of Heart and Soul, which looks at personal stories of faith,

I'm speaking to Kai Hus to learn how, against the backdrop of his grandfather's crimes,

he's seeking reconciliation with Jewish communities throughout the world.

My grandfather was the greatest mass murder in human history.

He was the architect of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

He built it from scratch, instructed or ordered by Himmler, obviously by the furor,

to build this super extermination factory where you could murder people at an industrial

scale. And he handled all the operational aspect to make this murder machine as effective as

possible. I've heard this expression that he was the greatest mass murderer in history.

Surely there's Stalin, other people like that.

Stalin in Mao, there's a lot of people throughout history.

You could call it political ideologies the way they did things that actually caused the death of people.

I don't think these people sat down and personally planned the extermination of 40 million Chinese people or 20 million Russians.

Rudolfes, he actually oversaw it. He was hands-on involved.

He was the executioner that was there.

As a child at home, growing up, how did you learn about him?

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