The Silesian town of Bedzin lies 25 miles from Auschwitz. The principal civilian administrator there, Udo Klausa, was a happily married, family man. He was also responsible for implementing Nazi policies towards the Jews in his area – inhumane processes that were the precursors of genocide. He later claimed, like so many other Germans after the war, that he had ‘known nothing about it’. Klausa’s case is so important because it is in many ways so typical.
