Lest We Forget

(6/20/2007)

Using the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust as a departure point of common understanding, Bali played host to a religious dialogue on June 12, 2007, attended by former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid (also known as ‘Gus Dur’), Muslim scholars, Hindu religious leaders, Christians, representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and a Holocaust survivor.

Taking issue with recent efforts by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's to rewrite history by historically denying the genocide of the Jews in WWII, President Wahid, said: "Although I am a good friend of Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, I have to say he is wrong. This is important, courage to say the right thing. I don't have favoritism here. The Jews, Europeans, Arabs are all the same. . He falsified History . . . I believe the Holocaust happened . . . I visited the Auschwitz Museum of the Holocaust and I saw the many shoes of dead people."

Also speaking at the one-day conference were well know Rabbi Daniel Landes; Sol Teichman a 79 year-old survivor of the concentration camps; Hindu Spiritual leader Sri Ravi Shankar; Buddhist teachers and a Jesuit priest.

The conference "Tolerance Between Religions: A Blessing for All Religions" was co-sponsored by the Wahid Institute, Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance and the LibForAll Foundation.