Reflections

Oswiecim

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