Suzanne Weiss believes lessons gleaned from her own life can help lead to peace between Israel and Palestine.

Weiss, a Jewish woman who currently lives in Toronto, was born in Paris in 1941 in Nazi-occupied France during a time when discrimination against Jews was raging across Europe.

“The French police were rounding up Jews by the tens of thousands and throwing them into French concentration camps,” she said. “They were handed over to the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz and murdered.”

Her mother was killed in Auschwitz in 1943.

But a wave of rebellion began in France against the treatment of the Jews.

“Both spontaneously and through organizations,” Weiss said to the congregation of Central United Church in Sarnia on Sunday.

Because of this, 75 per cent of French Jews escaped the Holocaust, she said.

“I was among them,” she said.

In 1943, a resistance organization took care of her and placed her with a peasant family in a farm region of southern central France. About 10,000 Jewish children were saved by being hidden or smuggled out of the country, she said, and one year ago she returned to France with her husband to learn more about how and why she was saved. What she learned was most of the people who hid, fed and welcomed the refugees were Christians.

“They welcome the refugees from Italy, from Spain, from German-occupied regions,” she said to the Sarnia church. “There were thousands of Jewish refugees, old and young.”

She also met a Christian French man, now 90 years old, who led his community in providing refuge. He was just 20 when he helped hide and protect 130 Jewish people seeking safety.

“He was ready to lay down his life for them,” she said.

This example of solidarity and universalism can help remedy the issue in the Middle East, said Weiss, whose message was called ‘The path to justice and reconciliation in Palestine and Israel.’

In 1948 when Israel was established, 700,000 Palestinians were driven out, she said, and currently there are thee million United Nations unrecognized Palestinian refugees in camps outside the area.

“The conflict remains unresolved to this day,” she said. “The situation in Palestine and Israel cries out for reconciliation and tolerance.”

Since Israel’s foundation and the expulsion of Palestinians, Canada has been deeply engaged in this situation, Weiss said.

“The lines of conflict extend deep into Canadian society,” she said.

Proposals for settlement include ending occupation, tearing down a separation wall and granting full equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

tbridge@postmedia.com

@ObserverTerry