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A Palestinian Student Defends Her Visit to Auschwitz
(Atlantic) Zeina M. Barakat - In March, I was one of 27 Palestinian students who visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps with Professor Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi. When we returned from Poland, the condemnation of our trip was deafening. Extreme Palestinian nationalists accused Professor Dajani of "selling out" to the Jews. It is impossible for me to make believe that there was no human tragedy perpetrated against millions of Jews and non-Jews during the Second World War. The Holocaust is a fact, and we all have a sacred responsibility to ensure that it never happens again to Jews or any other group. Many Palestinians link what happened to the Jews during World War II with the Nakba, the term Palestinians use to describe the events of 1948. Those who argue that the injustice Palestinians currently face is of the same magnitude as what happened to Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe are wrong. It pales in comparison to the dehumanizing horror, depravity, and evil conceived and implemented by Nazis and their collaborators. The writer is a doctoral candidate at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany.