European Knight
07-28-2015, 03:44 PM
A Palestinian professor takes his students to visit Auschwitz to learn about the roots of their conflict with the Israelis.
“We are breaking a big taboo. We are challenging the collective narrative of the Palestinians regarding the Holocaust.” Dr. Mohammed Dajani has become known worldwide as the Palestinian professor who led a group of students to visit
the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. But he began life with a very different point of view. “We grew up in an environment that was totally anti-Jewish,” Dajani – a native of Jerusalem – explains. “People harbored a lot of
anger towards the Jews for causing the Nakba (Catastrophe). They lost their property, they lost their home, they lost their identity. I grew up on the idea that the Holocaust was a conspiracy.”
But something happened during Dajani's early adulthood that helped change his black-and-white view of Israelis. And recently, he organized a trip that caused a firestorm. The plan was to take thirty Palestinian students to visit Auschwitz.
At the same time, thirty Israeli students planned to visit a Palestinian refugee camp, where they would hear from refugees of the Nakba. Dajani strongly believes that reconciliation between the two communities will never happen without
each community understanding the historical, and current, trauma of the other.
Should Palestinians Visit Nazi Concentration Camps? - The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/should-palestinians-visit-nazi-concentration-camps.html)
http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/07/27/should-palestinians-visit-nazi-concentration-camps/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/47933870.cached.jpg
Photo courtesy of Dr. Mohammed Dajani
“We are breaking a big taboo. We are challenging the collective narrative of the Palestinians regarding the Holocaust.” Dr. Mohammed Dajani has become known worldwide as the Palestinian professor who led a group of students to visit
the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. But he began life with a very different point of view. “We grew up in an environment that was totally anti-Jewish,” Dajani – a native of Jerusalem – explains. “People harbored a lot of
anger towards the Jews for causing the Nakba (Catastrophe). They lost their property, they lost their home, they lost their identity. I grew up on the idea that the Holocaust was a conspiracy.”
But something happened during Dajani's early adulthood that helped change his black-and-white view of Israelis. And recently, he organized a trip that caused a firestorm. The plan was to take thirty Palestinian students to visit Auschwitz.
At the same time, thirty Israeli students planned to visit a Palestinian refugee camp, where they would hear from refugees of the Nakba. Dajani strongly believes that reconciliation between the two communities will never happen without
each community understanding the historical, and current, trauma of the other.
Should Palestinians Visit Nazi Concentration Camps? - The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/should-palestinians-visit-nazi-concentration-camps.html)
http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/07/27/should-palestinians-visit-nazi-concentration-camps/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/47933870.cached.jpg
Photo courtesy of Dr. Mohammed Dajani