Sharings 2003

Dear Friends,

In New Jersey, on this beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, with bright, fresh snow on the ground and in the trees, I read two very personal accounts of our Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz, written by Laura Carboni and Fleet Shinryu Maull. I am moved to thank them for their open and tender hearts and their bravery. Reading their experience of the retreat has helped loosen the knot inside me which has kept my responses to Auschwitz mostly in check for these past weeks. Memories of the sights, sounds, physical feelings and emotions of Auschwitz immerged with greater clarity, meaning and importance. So did the love I experienced while in your presence.

I cried while reading. I cried when I got up to make coffee and imagined myself a Jewish woman of 1934 in her warm kitchen somewhere in Poland, making coffee for her husband and having little idea what was ahead. All these feelings are so confusing and I don't know if they will ever be made sense of but they are so important...to me and, I think, to all of us. I hope millions of people can experience them and feel their importance too.

Only a few days ago I realized that one of the reasons for my muffled feelings was the experience of a great personal loss just weeks before the retreat began. Only a few people in Poland were aware of this and I didn't speak about it to anyone. My closest and dearest friend, Colette, died on September 29th. Although she had a terminal illness her death came very suddenly. So I was in the midst of dealing with (or not dealing with) grief. On top of that mainly internalized grief were soon piled the terrible and wonderful experiences at Auschwitz. I think I might have exploded with all these emotions locked away inside were it not for the inexpressibly sweet attention and kind words of so many of you at the retreat. I give deep thanks to Sensei Genro Guantt, Ginni Stern, Christoph Kuhn, Jacob Lorfing, Miriam Klotz, Laura Carboni, Ola Kwiatkowska, Damian Dudkiewicz, Liz Fox, Reverend Ruth Scott, Adinah Rosen, Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, Ze-ev Ben Asher, Ruth Ben Asher, Swami Saradananda, Rudiger Benterbusch, Michal Kuder, Nina Kuhtreiber, Maja Lanz, Gwenn Gundula Hiller, Elizabeth Lutz-Hoffling, Adam Ostolski, Bill Wigham, Barbara Wegmuller, Roland Wegmuller, Christa-Rachel Bat-Adam, Ueli Hasler, Genine BarEl, Klaus Kohl and Fleet Maull for helping me to heal the wounds caused by Auschwitz and by my own ignorance and confusion. I don't have the words to tell Malgosia Braunek how wonderful it was to have been in the Small Group Council which she led. "My deepest thanks" is all I can say. And Andrzej Krajewski's welcoming words, generosity and gentle humor were essential to the success of the retreat. These are the people whose names I remember clearly but all of you, through your caring for one another, revealed yourselves to be a glorious and holy congregation of humanity.

May we all continue to be so blessed.

Peter Hansen


"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness." ~*~ Thich Nhat Hanh

To all of you

who made it possible that the auschwitz peacemaker retreat took place. with this letter i would like to tell you what i lived in the auschwitz-retreat,at least some aspects of it. first of all thank you very much for all the work you have done, for the presence of all of you during the retreat - so many hours a day. i can really appriciate it i am not a holocaust survivor, nor did i knew anybody personaly who was deported or died there before being with the group. but something inside of me tells me that i have to go to auschwitz. i believe it has to do with dealing with my inner war. to go through a deep emotional process in order to "come through" to more life or peace or love inside of me, so that by this way more life and love can irradiate in what i have to live in my daily life. it is a big gift to be in auschwitz with the peacemaker-group - to receive the sharing of all the people and of holocaust survivors. it was very good to sit in silence with you all, to read names - the simple profound buddhist services - the kaddish and the singing in the barracks. i feel graritude that i could participate. and i will not forget many sometimes little moments i was given to live with many people. moments which opened my heart. but inside of me there is a big need to be heard on another level. i understand now that for me this cannot be in a big group, even if sometimes the groups are smaller (little group council) the place where i felt heard was marian`drawings, where i could feel an expression of a level which cannot be expressed in words, and i felt heard by fleet the evening we met in the pavillon for expressing "difficulties".
thank you for that.
i know that my next step will be to go to auschwitz by myself. but i know i never would have dared to go there without the approach of auschwitz with the peacemakergroup. and i feel that when i will go there the group inside of me with all we have lived, will accompany me. who nows - maybe i will come back to the auschwitz retreat - maybe at a time where my personal needs are not overflowing that what can be live in a big group, maybe at a time when my heart can open more to what happens in the group. i feel gratitude at the end of this letter. thank you very much to all of you and i wish you a good peacemakertime.

madlaina 04.12.03

The retreat

and all the people there have such a deep personal meaning for me. I'll write about it when Fleet creates the Yahoo group but I want to thank the two of you for all that you've done to make this retreat such a great experience.

Malgosia...it's hard to tell you how loved I felt having you lead us in the Small Council Group. It was an honor that you shared so much of yourself with us. And your generosity of heart to Gwenn that final day moved me tremendously.

And thank you for the wooden talking piece. It is so beautiful. More beautiful, too, because it is a gift of the council and you.

Andrzej...The first night in the hostel, during Greetings and Introductions, your words of welcome, telling us we would all have our own personal retreats, was very comforting. It was important to begin in this way, knowing that we all had our own experiences to take care of, and have the support of all the staff as well as the other participants.

I'm sorry I hardly talked with you during the retreat. I didn't talk to very many people for different reasons but have come to understand better why that was. It's a very important lesson which I'm grateful to be learning and will share soon. And I was grateful for the beer you offered me on the last night. I regret not making a toast with you and just drinking it in silence instead.

Next year I want very much to go on retreat at Auschwitz again. I would like to do something to help during that time if I'm able. I may not be ready now for some of the responsibilities but by next November I think I will be.

Thank you.

Peter

Dearest beloved Friends and fellow Journeyers,

It’s so hard to put into words how I feel after Auschwitz-Birkenau. I’ve been home one week and feel an oppressive weight inside. I feel so detached from my world. I haven’t talked much about Poland; it doesn’t seem to want to emerge from my depths. Yet I want to share. Where to begin?

Let me follow the council rule – TALK ONLY FROM THE HEART.

OK heart …I feel longing. Longing for our circle of caring hearts that drew close for five wintry days under the grey skies of Auschwitz/Oswecim, which, remarkably and significantly, revealed to us the most beautiful, complete and inspiring rainbow I have ever seen, just as we entered the Birkenau death camp. After a morning spent at the Auschwitz Museum witnessing one of mankind’s darkest cruelest times, we entered Birkenau – ‘place of the Birch trees’ and Zyklon B and deaths of millions – where we would spend the next four days. Just then, we were sent a message: a rainbow, a symbol of hope, just days after we read the Chapter of Noah in the Torah reading at synagogue.

Auschwitz-Birkenau today is not a place of darkness but a place of hope. It takes darkness to reveal light. I felt in Auschwitz such a light, a grace, a promise of a better future if we remember the past, remember the cruelty that arises from hatred, from disconnecting from feeling and from caring about other human beings.

So Auschwitz for me was feeling. Feeling the pain of those murdered, torn from their lives and families. Feeling my pain, my pain as a Jew, carrying the wounds of thousands of years of hatred and persecution. I didn’t realize I had so much Jewish pain. I thought I was just angry with my father. Or the nasty girls in my bunk at summer camp.

I went to Auschwitz to go into my pain, to “plunge” into the darkness inside which I have spent a lifetime escaping. I recently discovered that I have been running from feeling. I kept myself so busy doing, “accomplishing,” aspiring, regretting, projecting, thinking – that I lost myself. I operated from the throat up and lost touch with my heart, because my heart was filled with so much pain it was too frightening to really feel. So I went to Auschwitz to feel the pain. What better place to encounter pain and suffering than Auschwitz?

And I encountered the pain in my heart. And the pain, concern and love in the hearts of the other participants who came to Auschwitz for their own reasons. And I opened my heart to them. And then I was able to open my heart to God, the ultimate light.

It’s been really hard to return to mundane life after Auschwitz. It’s great to see the kids, the husband. I really love them. But the daily grind: the chores, the appointments, the business commitments – I feel like an automaton, doing what I need to do, but something is missing.

My open heart, that’s what is missing. In Auschwitz we plunged into the pain, I entered into my broken heart and stayed there the entire retreat. I cried from my broken heart, I mourned from my broken heart, I listened from my broken heart, I understood from my broken heart, I loved, I sang and even laughed from my broken, now healing heart. For good measure I then fell on my head (for those present late Friday night).

So how do I keep my heart open when all around me are closing theirs? Adinah my holy sister has told me to turn every question, or every should statement (“I should do this or that”) into a prayer, so…

May the One who created my heart give me the courage and strength to keep it open and loving even when the enviroment is less than supportive and may I always be one with my feelings and sensitive to the feelings of others.

May all you dear friends, be blessed with maintaining your open and loving hearts, and may we continue to love and support each other as we did for five wintry days in Auschwitz.

Thank you all so much for making this retreat so profound and meaningful. Thanks especially to the organizers and facilitators. I miss you all very much.

A giant hug to you all. And thank you all for your thoughtful emails and wonderful stories.

Lots of love,

GENINE

Dear Andrzej and Friends,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Andrzej, for inviting me to the Auschwitz retreat. This was my first retreat with the Peacemakers.
I would also like to thank all other participants (physically present, or present just in the spirit) for inviting me, and making me feel invited. I felt very much at home with my other brethern (all the People of the Book) and Buddhist, who I have discovered to have so much in common with.
As Sufis, we cherish the idea of peace, which is at the core of our religion - Islam, which means Peace, resulting from total submission to the Will of the Almighty. We Muslims then, are also Peacemakers. We try to change the world by the inner struggle with our egos (nafs), which is for us the real battlefield (the true jihad). He who conquered himself, he 'conquered' the world.
Many blessings to all of you
on behalf of Polish Sufis

Andrzej (Ahmad)

I still think of our time at Auschwitz often; it has simply become a part of me. Even after the perspective of a year gone by, it still remains the most profound experience of my life.

Debi English, Bearing Witness Retreat in Auschwitz-Birkenau, 2003
Long Beach, California, USA

It seems such a long time since November 18th when I arrived home. It's only been two weeks. There have been times of sadness and confusion and times that were so sweet and joyful. Thinking of our time together in Poland brings up many of these feelings. They also seem to come unexpectedly and are not really "about the retreat". But I think they are products of the retreat experience, unclear and chaotic as it sometimes was for me. Now I'm trying to settle into not knowing what's happening and be at ease with that.
At Auschwitz-Birkenau it was like a layer of "myself" was removed and I felt things differently, with more reality. It was sometimes very painful but, at this moment, I'm glad it happened. And I'm very grateful to all of you for the sense of safety and support that your presence provided. I couldn't have "made it through" without you.
I hope to meet many of you again next November, if not sooner. And I hope you're all finding great benefit in our shared experience.

With warm wishes for a happy and peaceful holy season,

Peter Hansen