All language subtitles for The.Story.of.God.With.Morgan.Freeman.Series.3.4of6.Deadly.Sins.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org-ing

When I was six years
old we moved to Chicago,

a little country boy
in the big city.

While I was there,

you won't believe the
things I saw people do:

theft, vandalism,
sometimes worse.

Things were different in
small town Mississippi,

where everyone knows everyone.

If you were up to no good,
you'd never get away with it.

But the anonymity of a densely
populated city, like Chicago,

seemed to expose a more
primal aspect of human nature.

Religions call it sin.

And faiths around the globe

have their own prescriptions

for preventing,
and punishing, sin.

I wonder, if we put all
those ideas together,

could we actually conquer sin?

I'm travelling to the front
lines of our battle with sin.

From blood-soaked
mass rituals...

So this is where sin went viral?

To a festival
that conquers evil.

We light candles everywhere
and remove the evil from us.

I'll meet an executioner,

tortured by guilt...

Why do I have to continue to
sin over and over and over,

when I know it's wrong?

And the Hanoi jailer

who seems blind to it.

John McCain was my friend.

I'll learn about
purging sin from a corpse...

They would lay this directly on
the dead body and then eat it.

And ask if the biggest sins...

So your grandfather
was the one in Auschwitz?

The Master of Hell.

can ever be forgiven.

Every year, on Good
Friday in the Philippines,

the people of the
town of San Pedro

re-enact the Passion of Christ.

They parade a man, portraying
Jesus, to a small hill,

where they nail him to a cross,

using real nails,

and crucify him.

But that's not the only aspect

of Christ's agony they recreate.

Many villagers whip themselves,

just as the Bible says
Roman soldiers whipped Jesus.

Sharp pieces of bamboo make sure

the whips draw plenty of blood.

What could drive
shopkeepers and taxi drivers

to take up such a bloody ritual?

The answer lies across the globe

in Perugia, Italy.

I'm meeting historian,
Roberto Rusconi,

at the Church of San Bevignate.

Inside frescoes from
nearly 800 years ago,

tell the strange story
of how self-flagellation,

went viral.

You see here, they...

made a representation
of the Flagellants.

They are scourging themselves
naked to the waist.

The monks in the monasteries,

they used to make
this kind of penance,

to wash away every
sin in your soul.

But what made them
think that flagellation

would make them right with God?

We have to make
expiation for our sins,

and the only way is
scourge ourselves,

and be beaten as Jesus
Christ was beaten.

Our souls, as you know,
have the original sin

and you have to wash away
every part of it in your soul.

And you have to
wash it with your own blood?

Yes. It was more
effective than soap.

The Christian concept
of original sin,

began when Adam and Eve ate
from the forbidden tree.

Their defiance of God corrupted
the entire human race,

making sin something
even devout monks

must purge through penance.

But the walls of San Bevignate
reveal something more,

how flagellation spread
from the monastery

to the everyday believer.

So, in the corner,
you see their representation

to be the image
of Raniero Fasani.

Raniero Fasani.

Raniero Fasani's a normal
person, a lay person.

He had visions when Our
Lady appeared to him.

Fasani had taken up the
practice of self-flagellation.

Then, in 1260,

he had a vision of
the Virgin Mary.

She told him that the
common people, like him,

needed to purge their sins through
a great public flagellation.

Fasani began urging the
Perugians to whip themselves.

The Holy Mother came
to him and said,

'Listen, this is not just for
monks, this is for everybody.'

You gotta go back and tell them,

'Get out there and
start whipping.'

Yes. Don't rely on
monks, do it yourself.

So Fasani has his vision.

He comes in and he explains it,

and...

people followed him?

So, he was followed
by a lot of people

in town and countryside,
and they started scourging,

as he suggested, and it became
a practice for lay people.

It went out from the walls

of the churches and
it entered the square.

And it happened here in
Perugia, in the year 1260.

This place was crowded
with thousands of people.

All flagellating?

All flagellating.

They're drawing blood?

So, the square would have been
covered with blood, right?

Yes.

As catastrophes like the Black
Death swept across Europe,

so did mass flagellations.

Believers thought
that bloody penance

would bring salvation in
this life and the next.

So, we're literally...

standing in the square

Yeah.

where sin went viral?

Yes.

It just spread out.

It seems to me,

there was a deep human desire
to take action against sin,

sometimes by beating
ourselves up.

But to the Catholic faithful,

flagellation was
something more than that.

It was a way to share
the burdens of Jesus,

whom they believed died

to wipe away the
sins of humanity.

It does what...

penance is supposed to do,

bring us closer to God.

But what if a sinner
doesn't do penance?

Is there another
way back to God?

In the misty borderlands
of England and Wales,

there once was a way.

Journalist, Sal Masekela,

has come to the
village of Ratlinghope,

to learn about the lost
tradition of sin-eating.

Dafydd Mills Daniels is a
religious scholar and theologian.

-Hey.
-Hello.

-How are you?
-I'm Sal.

How are you?
Nice to meet you.

-Dafydd?
-Yes, Dafydd. Yeah.

This is a beautiful country.

Yeah.

And we brought you here
because this is the home,

or would have been the home,
of the very last sin-eater

in England, a man called Richard
Munslow, who died in 1906.

Munslow was a prosperous
farmer for much of his life,

but he died performing
bizarre rituals...

with the dead.

Sin-eating.

What exactly does that mean?

Well, sin-eating was a practice
prevalent in this area,

England-Wales border,
about 500 years ago.

It started to die out
in the 19th Century.

And it was a practice
that involved

people taking on
other people's sins.

And where does
the eating part come in?

Ah, right, it's a good question.

Why don't we go into the
barn and get some things,

and I'll show you
how that worked?

Alright, cool.

Okay, let's see if this is open.

Yeah, so here we are
in Munslow's barn.

Wow!

Why don't you grab hold of...

-These chairs?
-Yeah.

And I'll take this board.

So why don't you put
those chairs out there.

Okay.

So when you had a sudden death,

and so it hadn't been possible
for a priest to come to the house

for the person who died,

and they'd sort of be considered
to die in a state of sin,

then the family may well
have called a sin-eater.

What have you got there?

Well this is some
of the paraphernalia

of a sin-eater.

And what they used...

were things like this.

So they would have
a wooden plate,

a wooden bowl,

some bread,

and some salt.

So, you'd have this process,

usually outside the house.

The body would be laid out.

They would take out the salt,

put it in the plate,

put the bread on top of it

and then actually lay this
directly on the dead body.

Where a sin-eater

would lift it up and eat it.

They also consumed
liquid, as well as bread.

So in some places milk,

but also beer.

And we'd pour it into the bowl.

And again, the sin-eater would
lift it directly from the body.

At the end of the
ceremony of sin-eating,

the sin-eater would have said,

'I give easement and
rest now to thee,

come not down the lanes
or in our meadows,

and for thy peace I
pawn mine own soul.'

Mmmmm.

Translation: Ghosts,
please don't hang out here.

Exactly, yeah.

Why would they think
then that food, milk, beer

would be a process to absolve
someone of their sins?

Yeah. Here we had
this idea of sin

being its own
entity or substance.

The sin of this other person has
been transferred into the food

and then into the
sin-eater themselves.

When a soul is weighed
down by sin, it's burdened.

It has difficulty
in the afterlife,

gets caught between
heaven and earth,

and can come back as a ghost.

Mmmm.

What type of person
would become a sin-eater?

Well, usually desperately poor.

So, essentially what
you have here is people

selling the only thing
they have of value,

which is their own soul.

This person sells his own soul,

but then he stops the
community being affected

and disturbed by this dead
person's soul coming back.

But if sin-eating was an act of
desperation for the destitute,

why did a successful farmer
like Richard Munslow

choose to dine over the dead?

This rugged borderland
between England and Wales

was the scene of many
battles over the centuries,

and it's a place with a rich
tradition of ghost stories.

Sal Masekela and historian,
Dafydd Mills Daniels,

are on the trail of England's
last known sin-eater,

a man whose job

was to rid the dead of sin
and purge the land of ghosts.

Here we are at Richard
Munslow's tombstone.

This is his actual grave site?

Yeah. This is it.

Wow!

So this is the final sin-eater.

And there you see...

his family, his children.

Yeah.

Four children.

Wow, this gives more of a
sense of him as a person.

Yeah, it does.

And you mentioned earlier that

usually it was poor people

that chose to practice this,
almost out of necessity,

not necessarily choice.

Munslow was a farmer,

a family man,

it seemed like he was
fairly successful.

Why would he choose this?

Yeah, it is a curious
choice, isn't it,

particularly for
someone like Munslow.

The basic motivation
he seems to have had

is that his children
died quite suddenly.

Three of Munslow's
young children,

took sick and died in
a single week in 1870.

Dafydd believes Munslow may
have linked his personal tragedy

to the notion that unforgiven
sins were haunting the village.

This fear about
the souls from the dead

coming back to haunt
their own society.

What the sin-eater was
doing was saving society

from negative
consequences of sin.

So while they were viewed
somewhat as a pariah,

within the community,

there's also the
sense of this is a value.

Right. Yes.

Christ, taking on the
sins of the world,

but he has to die for
that atonement to happen.

And so Munslow, he's
agreed to be damned.

Munslow seemed to have viewed it as
this act of self-sacrificial love.

Personal tragedy

led Richard Munslow to
become the last sin-eater.

Bereft by the loss
of his children,

he sacrificed his soul

to save the soul
of his community.

He provided grieving families
with a sense of peace

that he himself
would never know.

For someone already
so heavily burdened,

it was an incredibly noble act.

Christians believe that we must

reckon with our sins
on Judgement Day.

But does that day
come in Heaven,

or down here on Earth?

I'm meeting Jerry Givens...

Man, this is a lovely place.

It is. Beautiful.

A man who has always
been a firm believer in God...

This is God's
creation, these trees,

aw, look at the beauty.

And who spent 17 years as executioner
for the state of Virginia.

I want to understand

how a man can take
another man's life

and not believe he's
committed a sin.

How many different ways of
execution did you take part in?

It was 25 by electrocution,

and 37 by lethal injection.

-You executed...
-62 people.

-Personally?
-62 people.

How did you feel?
I mean,

what kind of adjustments
did you have to make,

mentally or emotionally?

Well,

before each execution
I would pray.

-You would pray?
-Mm-hm.

I received the
condemned 15 days...

before I kill him.

During that 15 day period,

I'm trying to prepare him

for his next destination.

For electrocution,

you had to shave the head.

So I would put my
hand on his head

and I would pray
silently to him.

And we used to get on our knees.

'Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord
my soul to take.'

Yeah. I know that.

So these guys are gonna
die before they wake.

Did you think what
you were doing was a sin?

That's when I first started,

nah, not really, because...

what I used to say,
Morgan, I say, well, God,

these people don't
deserve to live

for what they done
to other people.

They should have to suffer,

for what they done.

I'll give you an example

of one of the crimes
that this guy committed.

There was an 86 year old woman.

He nailed her feet
to the wooden floor,

and nailed her
hands to the chair,

and poured gasoline on her
house and set it on fire.

You know? And to me,

does this guy deserve to live

after doing this to
another human being?

And it's in the Bible,

'eye for an eye.'

But it also says,

'Thou shalt not...'

Kill.

How do we...

come to terms with
two opposites there?

Because, Morgan,

inside of each human being
lives a thing called 'death'.

You understand?

It can't sentence you to death,

you're already
sentenced to death!

God said you're gonna die.

But Jerry's conviction
that he was doing God's will

was eventually shaken.

God brought
Earl Washington to me.

Who is Earl Washington?

Earl Washington
was a man on Death Row.

He was innocent, but he
was sentenced to death

for a crime that
he didn't commit.

In 1993, Earl Washington
became the first man ever

exonerated from Virginia's
Death Row, by DNA evidence.

Back in 1985,

Jerry had come within nine days
of carrying out his execution.

But when one man is
found innocent...

It cast doubt
on the whole system.

That's right,
on the whole system.

In all of my prayers
I will always ask God

to never allow me to
execute an innocent man,

'cause I didn't want to be in the
position to take an innocent life.

So now you're in serious
doubt about what you do.

-Am I right about that?
-Yeah.

It put doubt here.

It put doubt in the executioner.

Despite his growing doubt,

Jerry continued his work as
executioner for several years.

Then, in 1999,

Jerry helped a friend buy a car

with what proved
to be drug money.

He was convicted
of money laundering

and lying to a Grand Jury,

and went to prison.

Even though he still
claims innocence,

he sees this moment not
as a fall from grace,

but as his salvation...

from sin.

When this happened,

God told me afterwards say,

'Well, I brought Earl
Washington to you,

I answered your prayer,
but you didn't leave.'

So God said, 'Well,
if you wanna do that,

I'll bring this here
case against you.'

I will make sure
that you will leave.'

I went to prison,

for 57 month,

and that's what helped
me change my mind.

If I offered you the job now?

No, I wouldn't do it.

Why not?

Because I've learned that
innocent people be executed.

The court system is not great, right?
It's not fair.

You will not tell me that,

because it's a sin?

It is a sin.
It is, it's a sin to kill.

After Jerry was
released in 2004,

he became an anti-death
penalty activist.

He has travelled
around the world,

trying to educate people
about alternatives,

to capital punishment.

Why do we have to kill a person

to show that killing is wrong?

If I cut this finger,

do I have to cut this
finger to stop the bleeding?

No.

That's just
compounding the error.

Yeah. You know,
we all have sinned

and come short of
the glory of God,

we all, as humans.

We live in a simple world.

Why do I continue to sin
over and over and over,

if I know it's wrong?

How can we know what's right

and what's wrong?

You can avoid the
seven deadly sins,

you can follow the
Ten Commandments,

but the Bible rules aren't
clear in every situation.

Jerry found himself
caught between,

'an eye for an eye,'

and 'thou shalt not kill',

and stuck in a moral
dilemma over life...

and death.

What he did, maybe that's
what we all need to do,

wrestle with ourselves
and our faith,

to do what we believe is right.

But this struggle doesn't
have to be morose or solitary.

In fact, it can
be a celebration.

I'm in London,

home to nearly half
a million Hindus,

to experience Diwali,

the Hindu New Year.

This five-day festival of light

celebrates the triumph
of good over evil,

and the wiping
away of bad deeds,

from the previous year.

I'm visiting Tarun and Jaymin
Patel and their family...

-Oh, welcome! Namaste.
-Namaste.

To learn more about
this ancient tradition.

Thank you so much for
inviting us into your home.

Tell me about your celebration.

Diwali is an annual festival.

It's the biggest festival of
the year in Hindu calendar.

We do a big family dinner.

It means all our family get together
and we all eat lots of food.

But the greatest thing of
all is that during Diwali,

it's important that
we also remember God,

and we keep him central.

Diwali centres around the story

of a beautiful
princess called Sita,

an avatar of the
Goddess Lakshmi.

She was kidnapped
and imprisoned,

by a many-headed demon
king called Ravana,

backed by an army of demons.

But Sita's husband, Lord Ram,

an avatar of Vishnu,

came to rescue his wife.

Armed with his bow,

he took on Ravana's demon army.

With one final arrow...

he slayed Ravana,

and freed his beloved wife.

Hindu tradition says that
Ram and Sita's subjects

lit oil lamps to guide the
couple back to their kingdom,

representing the triumph of good

over the darkness of evil.

It is festival of light,

but we're welcoming
you, God, come in.

It's like Ram came that time.

We light candles everywhere,

and we believe that
the evil from us,

the darkness from us,

we should remove
and bring the light,

the good things, from everybody.

That's perfect.

Ram was a symbol
of righteousness.

He was the ideal father,

the ideal son, the ideal
brother, the ideal husband.

So those things over Diwali,

as Hindus we will reflect on,
and we will try and be that

on a personal level,
as much as we can,

for as long as we can.

If you reflect back, you will
realize that you committed sin.

That is what Diwali is about.

Gotcha.

It's the opportunity
to forgive and forget.

Do you manage that?

We try.

Forgive, yes;
forget, perhaps not.

Ah yes, I gotcha.

Okay. There is sin and karma.

Are they compatible?

Do they sort of
mean the same thing?

Karma is the...

good things that you do.

You accumulate good karma.

And bad things that
you do in life,

you accumulate bad karma.

So the idea is to
make the good karma

bigger than the bad karma.

You really want to weigh
heavily on the good

Yes.

and try your best to...

Get to moksha, which
is the salvation of the soul.

Right.

And the karma dictates how fast

or slow you go towards moksha.

It's not a sprint,

it's a marathon.

So, we've gotta be patient

and we've gotta persevere.

But with faith as your light,

you will get there.

You just explained a lot of
stuff with that one sentence.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

After celebrating at home,

this third and most
important day of Diwali,

culminates with families
going to the temple.

The rituals done in the home

are performed again
as a community,

on a much grander scale.

The last ritual of the evening,

is the ultimate display of
light overcoming darkness,

clearing away the bad
karma of the past year,

and lighting the way toward
the liberation of the soul.

Just like the yearly cleansing
of the monsoon rains in India,

Diwali is a time for Hindus
to clean up their karma,

to renew their efforts to avoid
the temptations of selfishness,

to keep working on moksha,

or liberation.

We all make
mistakes in judgement.

Our conscience,

often guided by faith,

leads us to correct them.

But faith can also
drive us to commit sins,

and believe we have
done nothing wrong.

The Christian idea of sin,

has shaped how
western civilization

grapples with questions
of right and wrong.

But I want to understand sin
from a different perspective.

So I've come to Vietnam,

a country with three overlapping
religious traditions:

Confucianism,

Taoism

and Buddhism.

This country was
devastated by war

for much of the 20th Century.

Sin is an inevitable
part of war.

American bombing campaigns

killed tens of
thousands of civilians.

Vietcong executed
tens of thousands

of South Vietnamese villagers,

and were infamous for
torturing captured Americans.

Here, in Hanoi,

the Hoa Lo Prison held
hundreds of American POWs,

they knew it as
the Hanoi Hilton.

I'm meeting Tran Trong Duyet,

the former Director,

to understand how he looks
back on those days now.

Mr. Duyet, so
nice to meet you.

And you.

So, this is the
famous Hanoi Hilton?

You worked here?

I'd like to talk to you
some more about that.

Let's go and sit down and talk.
Okay?

Perhaps the most famous
prisoner at Hoa Lo,

was a young John McCain,

who was taken there in 1967,

after he was shot down
over North Vietnam.

McCain never fully
recovered from the physical

and mental torture he suffered
at the hands of his captors.

Now, that's John McCain,

yeah, and that's you, right?

Yeah.

So, can you share your memories

of John McCain with us?

What I remember the most was,

when we come to meet together

after my working time,

and he'd teach me English,

and we talked together,
just like friends,

and we had a very kind of,
like, friendly relationship.

Interesting.

Well McCain says
that he was tortured.

Does that fit your recollection?

I have to say there
was no torture at all.

John McCain was my friend.

So you're saying that
there was no torture at all.

He was never tortured?

100%, no torture.

We save him.

He nearly die

when he gone into
the lake in Hanoi.

And we actually rescue
him and cure him.

Okay.

Well let me just ask
you in a general sense.

Do you have any feelings
about that scenario,

where people regret
what they did in prison,

or during war?

In the war, of course,
there's no other choice.

It's a duty of each soldier

to do what they were told.

I am really proud,

that I tried my best,

to do the duty to my country.

I'm not sure whether Mr. Duyet

simply doesn't remember
what happened in the war,

whether he's avoiding the truth,

or whether his
apparent lack of guilt

stems from a difference
in cultural perspective.

To gain insight,

I'm going to Hanoi's Confucian
Temple of Literature,

to meet Dr. Duong Ngoc Dung,

a professor of
religious studies.

Dr. Dung, I presume?

Oh, yeah.
Are you Mr. Freeman?

I am Mr. Freeman.

Okay, please. Please.

-Thank you.
-Okay.

Now, I had this conversation

with the Head of
the Hanoi Hilton.

Oh yeah, yeah, I know him.

Were there some
bad things that happened,

and his idea was that if so,

it doesn't really matter.

Because yes,
you're a soldier, yes.

Yeah.

He's say, soldier to soldier,

it's an even deal.

Okay.

Big question is,

do the Vietnamese look at sin
the way we in the west do?

The dominant religion
in Vietnam is Buddhism,

but the dominant moral education

teachings is Confucianism.

According to
Confucian philosophy,

we sin because we are
not well educated.

There are five cardinal
laws of morality.

Number one thing is benevolence,

and then righteousness,

trust, wisdom and
then social rituals.

These five cardinal rules,

if I break one
'em, I haven't done

anything as far as
God is concerned,

I've actually sinned
against society?

-Yeah. Against society, yes.
-Yeah.

You destroy
your social relationship.

Confucian ethics
is very practical.

It is not metaphysical,
it is not philosophical.

It just asks us to do something

that we want people to
do the same thing to us.

Golden Rule:

Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you.

Exactly.

So a good, concise explanation

of Confucian philosophy
would be what?

Something like, we should be...

personally responsible
for social harmony.

Brings up the question, however,

of a whole society
going off the rails,

like Nazi Germany.

The holocaust
happened because...

the community
allowed it to happen.

Yes, of course.

One of the weaknesses

of Confucian philosophy is that

it has put a lot of power

on the role of the King.

So if the King is a good guy,

people can benefit.

But if the King is a bad guy,

oh my God, everything,
you know...

Everything goes to pieces.

Yes, yes, exactly like that.

Confucian ethics act like
glue holding society together.

But under despotic leaders,

or the immense pressure of war,

the Confucian mandate

to be a good member of
society can blind people

to the fundamental
morality of their actions,

even in retrospect.

So now let's go back to the idea

of Mr. Duyet at the prison.

Because, his thinking is that

if you're in uniform
you're bound to do it,

it doesn't matter what it is.

Personally, I think
he's totally wrong.

I can refuse because
I'm human being.

-You can think.
-Okay.

Right, Confucius,

he lives in the perfectibility
of human nature.

You should think before
you do something, right?

Nothing in life
is more liberating

than to fight for a cause
that is larger than yourself.

Now that might be a bit
of Confucian wisdom,

but in fact,

those are the words of
Senator John McCain.

The Confucian
tradition of Vietnam,

drives its people to do what
society asks them to do;

but that doesn't mean
that its adherents

must blindly follow a leader
down a path towards sin.

Confucius would expect
us to be well-mannered,

to be trustful,

to have a good head

and a good heart.

But when society
goes off the rails,

and people commit the
most heinous of sins,

can there ever be forgiveness?

The town of Terezin,
in the Czech Republic, is a

memorial to one of the most
horrific sins in human history,

The Holocaust.

The Nazis turned the town
into a Jewish prison ghetto.

From here,

they sent nearly 140,000
Jews to extermination camps.

Christianity teaches that

all things can be forgiven.

But how do you forgive a sin,

as monstrous as this?

Rainer Hoess is a
German activist,

who has devoted his
life to reckoning

with the crimes
of the Holocaust.

He has come to meet
Dr. Tomas Kraus,

a Jewish community leader,

to understand the sins that
were committed at Terezin.

Hello.
Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, the same.

So, let me know a little bit
more about your history...

here.

Here, we are in Terezin,

and behind us is the ghetto.

The trains were going
right into the ghetto,

and the gates closed
after the trains.

And then,

actually, they took the
people out of the ghetto

and they were sending
them to Auschwitz.

So it starts here in
Terezin, and it ends up

in the... in the
way of Auschwitz.

My father was sent
here to Terezin

with the very first transport.

It was November 1941.

The family of my mother
was also affected.

She was from a family
with seven children,

and she was the only
one who survived.

So we are very...

emotionally attached
to this place.

Wow!
Oh my goodness.

This is the main entrance.

And as you can see,
it's black and white.

Very symbolic.

Some people say that
it's swallowing people.

The prison was meant
to be a holding place

for Jewish and
political prisoners,

but inmates were tortured,

hanged, or shot.

And over there now,

this is the Tunnel of Death,

and nobody who was behind it,

would come out alive.

This is the Jewish cell here,

which is for us,

a very important site, because,

it was used for Jews
from the ghetto,

as a punishment.

And in the cell,

which was built only
for a dozen of people,

at one time it had,
like, 90 people.

And none of them survived?

None of them survived.

It's sad.

It's a strange feeling to be here.
Everything...

shows me exactly what
I saw in Auschwitz,

what I saw in Buchenwald,

in Majdanek, in Treblinka,

in all these different,
disgusting camps.

My grandfather
organized the genocide.

He was a master in it.

Rainer's grandfather
was Rudolf Hoess,

the commandant of the
Auschwitz Extermination Camp,

and one of the chief architects
of Hitler's final solution.

At his trial,

Hoess admitted his
role in the Holocaust

and was sentenced to death.

Before his execution in 1947,

Hoess gave confession

and was absolved

by a Catholic priest.

But Hoess's sins

were not eradicated.

They have scarred the lives
of countless Jewish families,

generation upon generation.

They've also left their mark

on Rainer Hoess.

What is your feeling?

Do you feel any responsibility?

Well I'm not guilty,
I wasn't even born

when things like that happened.

But responsibility, of course.

My family is not
dealing with it.

So they're big deniers,

they glorify more
my grandfather.

It never happens.

I'm the black
sheep in my family.

But I'm proud to
be the black sheep.

I'm wearing a cruelty name.

I think it's important
to use the name

to change things in life.

So this is our joint mission;

because I feel also
my responsibility.

I have to give the
witness of my parents

to further generations.

Your grandfather was
the one in Auschwitz...

The Master of Hell.

And my father was
the prisoner there.

So it's very important that
we not only are admitting,

it's very important that we
are sending out the message...

to the world.

My father, and my
mother, by miracle,

they survived and they
came back from the camps.

Their main slogan was,
'Never again. Never again.'

It was a mantra for them.
'Never again'.

It's on us, the second,
third generations

continue to take the torch.

It's interesting,
your pin, Zachor.

Remember.

Why you have it?

It is together
with the survivors.

We deliver it to pupils
and people in the world,

1.6 million times.

And, our idea was that,
if you use that pin,

maybe in the
jewellery box at home,

sometimes one of the grand kids
or kids ask about it.

So it gets delivered
over centuries,

over generations.

It's a wonderful idea,

because this is how you fight.

If we do nothing,

we learned nothing.

Exactly.

I think that's the
message I deliver.

And we have to raise
our warning finger,

because it's a
never ending story.

The teachings of
Christianity ask us

to hold two seemingly
contradictory ideas

at the same time:

that sin must be forgiven,

but that we inherit
original sin.

Well it may not be
so contradictory,

'cause it points
to a subtle truth,

that all sin can
ultimately be forgiven,

but it takes honesty,

courage,

and sometimes many
lifetimes of work.

Religions differ in
how they define sin,

but all faiths strive
to steer us away

from our baser instincts,

our selfishness.

They make us wrestle
with right and wrong.

They keep us honest

about our own failings,

and help us to
ask for,

and offer, forgiveness.

A poet once wrote,

'To err is human,

to forgive,

divine.'

Forgiveness,

I think this may be the best

of human qualities.