Impact Report: Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat

Since 1996 the Auschwitz retreat has been an interfaith and immersive cross-cultural gathering event for over 1500 peacebuilders from different war-torn countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Palestine/Israel, Syria, Native American Nations and over 20 other countries. This 2018 impact report details some of the many positive results of the program.

Prayers on the Plum Tree: Sensei Engu Dobbs’s Reflection on the Zen Peacemakers Native American Plunge August 2017

SOUTH DAKOTA, USA. Each day we sat in a large circle and began and ended our meetings by smudging with sage smoke, offering tobacco, and listening to Lakota songs and prayers. Listening deeply and bearing witness to the grief of others tends to be hard, hard practice…But if we’re able, more or less, to stay with the grief…The result is often a powerful and surprising feeling of joy.

The Face I See Everywhere: Why Barbara Wegmüller Returns to Auschwitz

OSWIECIM, POLAND. „There is the face of a woman, looking at me, ever since I met her eyes for the first time. She is looking at me on one of the pictures in one of the memorial halls in Auschwitz I, the original camp. The photo shows her as she is waiting with a group of women and her children at the selection site. Her face shows disgust, fear, distress, and she seems to know what will happen to her and her children as she looks into the camera.“

Barbara Wegmüller, a Zen Peacemaker Roshi and Bearing Witness retreat Spiritholder (facilitator), responds to the question of why she’s been coming back to bear witness at Auschwitz for nearly 20 years.