On this edition of Sentinel Watch, our guest, Elisabeth Seaman, shares how her experience as a Holocaust survivor led her to want to help others resolve their disputes peaceably, and how discovering Christian Science led her to a career in conflict resolution and teaching others how to solve disputes. And she gives examples of seeing God guide her in her work as a mediator.
A survivor’s powerful life story:
From the time I was a child, peace was very important to me because I’m a Holocaust Survivor. I was a small child during the World War and we were refugees from Germany to Holland. But then Holland got taken over by the Nazis and the year before the end of 1943, my grandparents were arrested and sent to the gas chambers in Poland.
In 1944, we were arrested and sent to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany, and my father passed in there in January 1945. My mother and I were liberated by American troops from a train that we were on a transport out of Bergen-Belsen and just a couple of days before the Germans surrendered.
We returned to Holland for a short time, then we lived in El Salvador where my uncle was for 7 years, and then finally came to the US in 1953. Ever since then, peace has been very important to me, and I’ve tried to live as peaceably as possible in my family and with others and tried in one way or another to promote it.
Then in 1981, I learned about mediation, I had never heard of this. When I read about it, I thought ‘Oh! That is the way to go.’
The path to mediation and resolution
To hear more of Elisabeth’s experiences with mediation and conflict resolution and how her storied past lead her down this path, you can tune in to this edition of Sentinel Watch—a weekly production of the Christian Science Sentinel.
Listen Now: CONFLICT RESOLUTION