Where the Desert Meets the Sea

by Werner Sonne

The series Dachauer Hefte provides important insights into events surrounding the liberation of Dachau concentration camp and is partially available in English, titled Dachau and the Nazi Terror: 1933–1945; Testimonies and Memories. My numerous trips to the region, to Israel, to the Palestinian territories, and to surrounding states, have helped me to better get to know the people on the ground and to understand the roots of the ongoing conflict—even when it’s sometimes hard to understand why two peoples simply cannot find common cause. This, despite solutions that finally seemed within reach, at least in the 1990s, when statesmen on both sides were even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, only to fall back into the old hostile patterns of behavior. In all the bitter disputes in the seventy years since the founding of the State of Israel, one institution has shown that it may be possible for those involved to view people as humans first and foremost, and to make the issues of nationality, religion, and ethnicity secondary. The Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, founded by and largely maintained by Jews from the United States, was then and remains now an island of humanity amid a sea of mistrust and hostility.