Posted: 01/27/2014 11:26 am on
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jack-bemporad/muslim-holocaust-_b_4549877.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
By Rabbi Jack Bemporad and Marshall J. Breger
Muhamed Jusic was quiet throughout
much of our journey and we only learned afterwards why. He had his own story to
tell. From the Kenyan mall massacre and the Boston Marathon to renewed violence
in Iraq, Muslim extremists capture the headlines. Yet between the grim
captions, there are other stories and there is hope. We, a Reform Rabbi and an
Orthodox Jew, know this firsthand.
We experienced an unprecedented, some
even called it an historic trip, that involved 12 influential Muslim imams,
professors, and business leaders from around the world. These Muslim leaders
agreed to travel with us, some against the opinion of family and friends and
with safety concerns back home. Why? Because the trip was to Nazi concentration
camps in Germany and Poland and the Holocaust is commonly misunderstood and
misused within the Muslim world to foment anti-Semitism and anti-West hate.
These leaders felt obligated to bear witness to the truth. They then took home
what they saw and condemned anti-Semitism in all forms.
Among them was Muhamed Jusic from
Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country with its own atrocities and rise of evil.
"I could not stop comparing horrors of Holocaust with my own experience
and childhood memories of 'ethnic cleansing'. It was very hard to put into
words all my overwhelming feelings and thoughts while visiting actual places
where people became the victims of the biggest atrocity in European history. I
feared I might sound pathetic, after all, what could I possibly say that was
not said by so many before me? How can I possibly make some sense out of it all
when the greatest minds in human history cannot explain to us what happened to
humanity? My own story haunted me during trip. But I did not have courage,
unlike many of the Holocaust survivors we met, to openly share my story with
the others."
When his hometown of Kotor Varos was
overrun by Serbian forces in 1993, he was just 13 years old and his little
brother was 11. They witnessed the unimaginable, including the slaughter of
their Muslim neighbors by Serbian soldiers. He grabbed his little brother and
escaped into the forest where they lived for months in terrible conditions and
constant fear before reaching free Bosnian territory.
But rather than become bitter or
radicalized by a tragic past, Muhamed became a Muslim theologian and
influential writer in the Bosnian region.
"Visiting concentration camps in
Auschwitz and Dachau as well as the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, for me, was by no
means a visit to the past but somehow to our present and future." Returning
to Bosnia his personal reflections and work grew more committed. "I kept
thinking about that 'never again' we hear every time someone talks about the
Holocaust. It made me wonder how sincere are we in that statement when we as
humans and as an international community let atrocities happen every few years,
be it in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Myanmar or these days in Syria."
He also knows that Muslims need to
fight back against the headlines and show they are peace-loving members of the
global community. Which is why he drew our attention to a renewed Declaration
from the former Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina and current President of the
influential World Bosniak Congress. Professor Dr. Mustafa Cerić is a global
voice of the Bosniak nation in the aftermath of its genocide and an influential
link between east and west. The Declaration is in response to the London and
Boston terror attacks and is endorsed by the Islamic Forum of Europe.
In detail, it calls on scholars and
intellectuals from all schools and denominations of Islam to unite against
those who harm and destroy in the name of Allah and Islam. At the same time, he
asks the West not to blame all Muslims and Islam for the crimes of the few.
Muhamed asked us how to get this information out to the American people.
Do we Americans have the courage to
accept Muslims as peaceful neighbors and friends? When Islamaphobia grabs
headlines here, how many of us think, that's not my problem? How many secretly
say, serves them right?
In the Jewish text, the Mishnah, it is
written: "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an
entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an
entire world." It is worth noting that Islam's Qu'ran shares the same
essence: "The destruction of one innocent life is like the destruction of
the whole of humanity and the saving of one life is like the saving of the
whole of humanity." [Qu'ran 5:32]
Our Muslim neighbors are us and we are
them: we are fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers; we all say we seek
peace. Yet acts of violence and derision against "the Other" means
Muhamed's question remains unanswered: "How sincere are we?
Mohamed is the father of two
daughters. He's committed to "never again" because, with his jaw
tightly set, he says never will he allow his children to experience the horrors
he did as a child. "The Holocaust is not just our common history, it
could, as my own Bosnian experience shows, easily become our present and future
if we all do not learn the valuable lessons that it can teach us."
"When I was standing in the
middle of Dachau`s gas chamber in which thousands of innocent victims were
hopelessly trying to catch their last breath, it sent a shiver down my spine to
think that through the streets of Europe and the world still walk young people
who are prepared to deny this evil, defend it and repeat it on someone
else."
He speaks in defense of all our
children.
Full text of the Joint Statement signed by all Muslim leaders who participated in this trip can be found here
Full text of the Declaration of the World Bosniak Congress on Common Security and Global Citizenship can be uploaded here.
