The son of a Greek Jewish refugee whose parents were murdered in Auschwitz is bidding to become president of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023.

Moise Katumbi, who established his credentials as a politician as governor of Katanga province from 2007 and 2015, visited the site of the death camp where his grandparents perished last month.

He could become one of Africa’s most powerful politicians, journalist Cnaan Liphshiz told the Limmud Festival on its first full day on Sunday.

Mr Katumbi has “a warm spot in his heart for Judaism” and regards Israel as “his spiritual second home”.

His father Nissim Soriano was a Jew from Rhodes whose own father, fearing for the future of Greece from the rise of fascism in Europe, persuaded him to leave in 1938. The young Nissim went to Congo, then a Belgian colony, where a sister was already living. He founded a fishing company and married the daughter of a local chief.

His son Moise, who started a logging company, was a “massive success” as governor of mineral-rich Katanaga, Mr Liphshiz explained. During his period of office revenues in the province soared as a “bold gamble” paid off to establish local capacity to refine the cobalt and copper extracted from its mines. Access to water rose from 5 per cent to 67 per cent, school attendance more than tripled to 1.2 million.

People see him as “the brightest hope for reform for decades”.

Opponents have tried to block his path to the presidency by proposing a law that would restrict it to only those with two Congolese parents but so far the move has stalled following protests.

His paternal grandparents were killed on arrival in Auschwitz but an aunt, who was conscripted into slave labour by the Nazis when she was 13, escaped from a train in transit between camps. Although she was shot by a sentry and wounded, she was rescued by an American convoy and eventually went to live in Israel.

Mr Lipshitz, the European correspondent for JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Story), who covered Mr Katumbi’s visit to Auschwitz as part of a European Jewish Association delegation, said, “I can see the horror in his eyes”.

Mr Katumbi “doesn’t regard himself as Jewish although he is eligible to make aliyah,” he said. “He is a Catholic Christian who is aware of his Jewish origins”.

Mr Katumbi told the European Jewish Press last month that there were not many Jews in Congo today. “But I will tell you this: the oldest synagogue in Central Africa is in Lubumbashi. My cousin holds the keys to that synagogue. There is no rabbi for the moment, but the spirit is there. “

Moise Katumbi

Moise Katumbi pays his respects to the victims of Auschwitz who include his own grandparents (photo: European Jewish Association)