One of the goals
was to discuss ways to end the growing
polarization between faiths since the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Another was to counter a December conference
hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad that tried to cast doubt on the
killing of an estimated 6 million Jews
during World War II.
| Wahid, who led Indonesia from
1999 to 2001 and remains a highly
respected moderate Muslim leader,
said it was important that people
have the courage to speak the truth.
"Although I'm a good friend of
Ahmadinejad, I have to say that he
is wrong," he said.
"I visited
Auschwitz's Museum of Holocaust and
I saw many shoes of dead people.
Because of this, I believe the
Holocaust happened."
A Jewish survivor of the Nazi
genocide made an impassioned plea
for tolerance.
"I hope people will learn from
the past," said Sol Teichman, 79,
who was a teenager living in
Czechoslovakia when his city was
occupied first by the Hungarian army
and then the Germans. "We should try
to improve life instead of
destroying it."
|
Hindu spiritual leader and
humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,
left, former Indonesian President
Abdurrahman Wahid, center, and
Director of the Pardes Institute of
Jewish studies Rabbi Daniel Landes
attend a conference on religious
tolerance in Bali, Indonesia,
Tuesday, June, 12, 2007. A Jewish
Holocaust survivor made a plea for
tolerance Tuesday at a conference in
the world's most populous Muslim
nation that also brought together
religious leaders and victims of
attacks by Islamic extremists. (AP
Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)
|
The conference was sponsored by the
Libforall Foundation, a U.S.-based
organization that seeks to counter Muslim
extremism in the Islamic world by supporting
religious moderates, and the Simon
Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance.
"Why are the Jews so concerned about the
Holocaust? Well one-third of our people were
killed and only within six to seven years,"
said Rabbi Daniel Landes, who teaches
theology in Jerusalem.
"That abhors us not only as Jews, it's
abhorrent to us as members of humanity," he
said. "If it can happen once to a group of
people, it can happen to everyone."
Security was tight at the five-star hotel
that hosted the discreetly organized event.
Indonesia's government is secular and
most of its 190 million Muslims are
moderate, but a vocal militant fringe has
grown louder in recent years. Al-Qaida-linked
terrorists have twice attacked Bali -- a
mostly Hindu enclave -- killing more than
220 people.
"It has been difficult for me to excuse
in my heart those who committed this act,"
said Tumini, a Balinese woman who suffered
severe burns over her body during a
nightclub blast on the island in 2002.
She said she still has not recovered
emotionally, physically or financially.
Holocaust survivor Teichman, speaking
publicly for the first time in a
predominantly Muslim nation, said
Ahmadinejad's questioning of the Holocaust
made him want to "push a little harder" to
talk to Islamic leaders.
"I ask only one question," said Teichman,
who was sent to Auschwitz, Dachau, and three
other concentration camps before allied
forces liberated him in 1945.
"If that is a lie, can you tell me what
happened to my mother? To my sister? To my
brothers? To my grandparents?"
