Dear Reader, dear Collegues,

In this Newsletter we continue to publish contributions about the Cyprus Conference, in this edition papers by Lyn Yonack, Yehoshua Weiss and Bettina Jesberg. Hope we will continue the vivid discussion.

When you think about the conferences please keep in mind that what was said and not said, done and not done – in this type of conferences it is done or said or felt etc “on behalf of the conference”. It is not only personal, but mirrors conference dynamics.

In other words, if there was an unnoticed antisemitism, mourderous hatred, pain or struggle in the conference, even temporarily a psychotic breakdown someone might go through, this doesn´t belong to him/her only. It belongs to the conference dynamics.

Of course, your learning is personal.

We would also like to draw you attention to a book by Timothy Snyder. “Bloodlands Europe between Hitler and Stalin. The book with the same title is available in German as well (Beck Verlag 2011)

You may want to read a review. See the link to The New York Review of Books:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/16/holocaust-the-ignored-reality/?page=3

This is paticularly interesting for all who will attend the next conference in Poland.

Lyn Yonak

A few weeks after returning home from the 2010 Conference in Cyprus: ”Repeating, Reflecting, Moving on: Germans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Others – Today,” I received an email and questionnaire “as a means for developing the Nazareth Conferences Project and for working on the next conference.” That night, I had a dream: I opened the attachment (which I, in fact, had not) to read the first question: “Have you had direct experience and loss as a result of the Holocaust?’ For me, therein lies the rub.

Meeting a Nightmare – Yehoshua

I am a Jew, I am an Israeli, I am an American, and for reasons undesired by me, I am also an Austrian. Some members of my family were victims of violence during the Holocaust, and now I have met the son of one of the victimizers. I have been a perpetrator of violence unto others and now I have met some of the victims. And I have also discovered that I even belong, however reluctantly, to those who have victimized my own family.

A different view of the “Central Event” – Cyprus 2010

After reading the comments on the PCCA-website, recently, on the Cyprus conference, June 2010, “Repeating, Reflecting, Moving on: Germans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and Others today”, I found myself reflecting on them and not getting away from it. Therefore, encouraged by Veronica Grueneisen, to whom I talked about it occasionally, I would like to add some of my ideas about the development of this conference. Also Angelika Zitzelberger-Schlez, who I met by chance in the same time here in Berlin and being so much involved, asked her for her opinion, encouraged me to do so, she hoped for more discussion, but had a different view of the things than the one I pronounced.