European Workshop on dealing with the past of Auschwitz. Held at the Center for dialogue and prayer in “Oswiecim” dialogue… or perhaps silence and listening “At the threshold of Auschwitz”
I don’t know how can I explain my feeling? When I started to study and to know more about Auschwitz I felt so sad, I cried and was silent, I couldn’t speak. I was just listing to other people who gave us lectures. I had the chance to see and to hear the stories of some of the survivors from Auschwitz. When I went with the group to see the camp of Auschwitz and of Birkenau, I couldn’t imagine that so many people were killed, and how many million were in these camps. It was a terrible place because in every direction it was closed in, and that is why the people couldn’t escape from that place. I felt so sorry for the children and the people who were inside because if I tried to imagine myself with them in the camp I think I would have died from fear. My question is how do I treat people in my life? It is a question for every one of us: How do we treat the “other”?
How do I imagine this experience? I thought that it happened in the past and finished but NO. Because I feel that it is still happening in different ways today. I learned a lot from the workshop I will try to keep all these people who died in my prayer. Also those people who are still killing each other. I will continue to pray that God will give us the strength to love more and not hate.

Written by Victoria Nabil September 2015