Muslim group prays at Dachau

DURHAM -- Something rare took place outside the Dachau concentration camp in Germany this month: A group of Muslim leaders, including eight American imams, prostrated themselves in prayer.

The imams were part of a larger delegation, including several U.S. officials, who traveled to Germany and Poland to better understand the Jewish tragedy of the Holocaust.

Among them was Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at Duke University.

The Aug. 7-11 trip, sponsored by Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the N.J.-based Center for Interreligious Understanding, included visits to Auschwitz and Birkenau. The delegation, which included several officials from the Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, produced a remarkable statement.

"We condemn any attempts to deny this historical reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy as against the Islamic code of ethics," the imams wrote.

The statement came in response to attempts by some Muslims, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to deny the Holocaust. The 13 Muslim clerics on the trip sought to correct the impression that Muslims were anti-Semitic or insensitive to the sufferings of the Jewish people. Next month, the clerics are expected to testify before Congress about their experiences.

"Nobody can go to Auschwitz and come back the same person," Antepli said. "I'm a changed man."

Antepli said he thought he had understood the Holocaust intellectually, but seeing the crematoriums and the remains of hair in storage rooms made him break down and cry.

"The level of efficiency - the systematic killing of people over five years - it's beyond horrible," he said.

Marshall Breger, a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and his liaison to the Jewish community, said many of the Muslim clerics on the trip started out with very little knowledge about the Holocaust.

"For some of us, it's our mother's milk," said Breger, referring to Jews who are well-versed in the history of the Holocaust. "What this trip did is give them an experiential knowledge base."

Breger said the joint statement to come out of the trip was especially meaningful. "If I had written it myself, it could not have been stronger," he said.

The trip also produced a desire for additional trips, perhaps with Muslim youth.

Antepli, who initiated several interfaith gatherings between Jewish and Muslim students on the Duke campus, said he had always wanted to better understand the Jewish tragedy. It was only after meeting Rep. Keith Ellison, Democrat from Minnesota and the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, that he heard about the trip. He immediately asked to join.

"It came in response to prayer," Antepli said. "I don't think we can understand the collective Jewish psyche without understanding the Holocaust."