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Information Session for Bearing Witness at Auschwitz / BirkenauSeptember 2, 2026 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDTCLICK TO REGISTER FOR FREEEach November, Zen Peacemakers returns to Auschwitz-Birkenau to sit together and bear witness. This session is an open hour to ask about that practice — what the week actually asks of you, and what it might ask of us together. It is for anyone considering the retreat, an

Excerpted from “Why Bernie Kept Going Back to Auschwitz” article adapted from writing by Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. Grover Genro Gaunt sitting on the railroad tracks at Birkenau that lead to Selection Site where SS Guards would send people either to forced labor or immediately to the gas chambers. Photo by Steve McCurry.When you come to Auschwitz, stay a while, and begin to

Photo by Sinthujan Thangavelu Letters to a Young Poet (July, 1903)Have patience with all unsolved problems in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, or books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not search now for the answers, which cannot be given you, because you could not live them. That is the point, to live everything. Now you must live your problems. An

Both Zen and art-making are practices of transformation. They broaden seeing, soften understanding, and expand the field of our actions and speech. Join Zen Peacemakers on Tuesday, September 29th for a second conversation between poet Jane Hirshfield and Geoff Shoun O’ Keeffe as they continue the dialogue about art-making and activism, the ways that creative heart-mind increases compassion, and th

Excerpted from Pilgrimage to Auschwitz article by Vishvapani published in the book Challenging Times: Stories of Buddhist Practice When Things Get Tough.Barbed wire fencing at the perimeter of AuschwitzSome years ago I attended a Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz concentration camp. It as a sobering, but deeply stirring experience.When I announced I was going to do a retreat at Auschwitz, I met

Love“Love means to learn to look at yourselfThe way one looks at distant thingsFor you are only one thing among many.And whoever sees that way heals his heart,Without knowing it, from various ills—A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.Then he wants to use himself and thingsSo that they stand in the glow of ripeness.It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:Who serves best doesn’t always und

Both Zen and art-making are practices of transformation. They broaden seeing, soften understanding, and expand the field of our actions and speech. This second conversation between poet Jane Hirshfield and Geoff Shoun O' Keeffe will continue the dialogue about art-making and activism, the ways that creative heart-mind increases compassion, and the perennial question of meeting the difficult with t

Excerpted from “What Shall I Sing to You” A Conversation with Krishna Das and Bernie Glassman on the Peacemaker PodcastInside the Barracks at Auschwitz-BirkenauBernie asked me to sing in the barracks, - the women’s barracks. I was a little uncomfortable, but I had my harmonium so I said “Ok, I’ll do it.” So I went one day by myself to the women’s barracks and I sat down and I closed my eyes. And I

Photo by Ananya MittalMaking Peace“But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words of its making” - Denise Levertovexcerpt from Breathing the Water, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1987BEARING WITNESS RETREATThere’s great power in the placewhere life and death come together.- Eve MarkoThis November, Zen Peacemaker

Both Zen and art-making are practices of transformation. They broaden seeing, soften understanding, and expand the field of our actions and speech. This second conversation between poet Jane Hirshfield and Geoff Shoun O' Keeffe will continue the dialogue about art-making and activism, the ways that creative heart-mind increases compassion, and the perennial question of meeting the difficult with t

Excerpted from Long, Long Ago: Reflections on How It All Started by Eve MarkoI first accompanied Bernie Glassman to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the first days of December 1994, before anyone conceived of a bearing witness retreat at the site of the concentration camps.In my family, two aunts and an uncle died at Auschwitz. Another uncle barely survived the hard labor and lived the rest of his life like

A Stolperstein is a ten-centimetre cube inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go... I onward go, I stop,With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,Ye

Excerpts from Love Letter from Auschwitz by Peter Kuhn, originally published in The Mindfulness Bell.Photos and prisoner’s clothing at Auschwitz; photo by Peter KuhnMy wife Jackie and I joined the Zen Peacemakers for a five-day Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz, followed soon after with a trip to the European Institute of Applied Buddhism (EIAB) where we joined the Living Happily Together Retre

Tommy Dorsey (Issan Dorsey), San Francisco, October 1989 – photo by Allen GinsbergTo Issan Dorsey Roshi, on the occasion of his paranirvanaby Merri-Todd WebsterOriginally published: September 6, 2020One moment of perfect practice, says Dogenone moment of perfect enlightenmentOne moment of perfect prayera Rosary recited with pure attentionloving the Blessed Virginwanting to be like herOne moment of

From Why Bernie Kept Going Back to Auschwitz-Birkenau article adapted from writing by Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Glassman about his returning to Auschwitz-Birkenau year-after-year, and the purpose it has served for both him and other peacemakers.Every year since 1994, Zen Peacemakers have traveled to Auschwitz-Birkenau for a Bearing Witness Retreat. We spend a week sitting by the train tracks

Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness with Native Americans (July 2026)RememberJoy HarjoRemember the sky that you were born under,know each of the star’s stories.Remember the moon, know who she is.Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is thestrongest point of time. Remember sundownand the giving away to night.Remember your birth, how your mother struggledto give you form and breath. You are evidence of

From Letter to Bernie Glassman about Auschwitz Retreat ~ from Natalie GoldbergIn June 2011 Bernie Glassman brought another group to Auschwitz to Bear Witness. A hundred and fifty of us traveled from all over the world to attend.Six months before the trip great terror haunted me in the night. Unnamed, unconscious fears.When I taught in Houston I went to the Holocaust Museum there. As I walked along

得失是非，一時放卻。Gain and loss, right and wrong—release them all at once.Photo by Liana SZen Peacemakers Auschwitz-BirkenauBearing Witness RetreatAuschwitz-Birkenau is not an easy place to approach,especially when you are being called,to make whole.November 15 - 21, 2026Oświęcim, PolandMORE INFO HERESynchronized Gatherings Across Sites of Nazi Persecution and GenocideZen Peacemakers invites our Affiliate

From Long Long Ago: Reflections on How It All Started by Eve MarkoI accompanied Bernie Glassman to Auschwitz-Birkenau in December 1994, before anyone conceived of a bearing witness retreat at the site of the concentration camps.[During that first visit,] I experienced a profound act of letting go. Certain things changed radically afterwards, first of which was my relationship to German people and

“What unlocks us? What opens up deep traumas that I believe go way back before our parents’ stories, before our childhood, even before our birth? Therapists can help us deal with issues of our lifetime, but what about the karma of history, the fears of multiple generations? How do we finally confront streams of fear and hate that seem as old as time?” ~ Eve MarkoPhoto by Ethan Bouffard-RoyZen Peac