Two women, one Jewish and the other Muslim, who experienced brutality and oppression in different parts of the world decades apart came together in New Brunswick to promote tolerance and freedom before almost 2,000 middle and high school students.

Polish-born Gerda Weissmann Klein and Iraqi-born Zainab Al-Suwaij spoke May 1 as part of the Co-Existence Festival taking place in New Brunswick from April 28 to May 20.

The festival, which explores peaceful coexistence through art, was launched by the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem and has toured the world over the last five years.

Sixty pieces of outdoor art created around the theme of diversity and acceptance have been erected around the city.

The May 1 program, "My Sister," at the State Theatre drew spectators from as far away as Philadelphia. The diverse audience included students from inner-city, suburban, and Christian parochial schools.

Klein survived Nazi concentration camps and the loss of her entire gamily. Al-Suwaij grew up under the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, where she was shot while participating in a failed uprising against the dictator and forced underground.

Klein, with her husband, went on to establish the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation to promote tolerance and fight hunger. Al-Suwaij founded the American Islamic Congress to promote interfaith and interethnic understanding and push for moderation and nonviolence among Muslims.

Klein and Al-Suwaij, who also appeared that evening in a program for adults at the United Methodist Church in New Brunswick, met in the fall when both were accepting an award and immediately "clicked," despite differences in age, religion, and background.

"They were born into a world filled with hatred and violence," said Dr. Dan Gottlieb, a family therapist and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist who moderated the discussion. "They were told what to say and what not to say, what to think. To do otherwise was life-threatening in their societies. Yet there was something inside them that knew it was wrong."

Also addressing the students was Marie Noel, a senior at the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, who last May went on the March of Remembrance and Hope in Poland. Noel, a native of Haiti, was invited to address the United Nations Jan. 29 at its second annual Holocaust commemoration ceremonies.

In her remarks, Al-Suwaij spoke of living in a culture where even children were dealt with harshly by the authorities if they did not conform to Saddam's dictates.

In the fourth grade she was horrified when her teacher praised Hitler as "a great man."

When she asked why, she was told it was because he burned and gassed Jews. Al-Suwaij pressed the teacher about how that made him great.

"All I could think of was these people being burned – but she told me to shut up and sit down," Al-Suwaij recalled. "I always felt injustice and fear this way."

The granddaughter of a respected imam, Al-Suwaij at age 18 became one of the few women to participate in the failed 1991 uprising after Saddam's military was driven from Kuwait by American forces during the first Gulf war.

After an early victory in the fight, Al-Suwaij was given the privilege of unlocking the cell doors of political prisoners. Walking through the jail and seeing the conditions under which the inmates were interned – the blood spattered walls, torture chambers, and chemical baths in which humans were dissolved – "changed my life," according to Al-Suwaij.

"How could people go to that level to torture another human being like that?" she asked herself.

After being wounded, Al-Suwaij spent two months underground before bribing a border guard to ignore her name on a blacklist and allow her to slip into Jordan. She eventually made her way to the United States.

She formed her organization in the wake of 9/11, determined to counter terrorism and violence and increase understanding between Muslims and others.

After hearing Klein's story of having her family ripped apart when she was a teenager and of her years of slave labor during the Holocaust, Al-Suwaij said, "I cannot imagine how people could be part of a massacre because of someone's religious background and identity. Gerda's words came into my heart. It touched me deeply inside… I think her pain is one we can all share. She speaks the language of hope."

Klein's hope has remained steadfast for the more than 50 years she has been educating others through her books – including All But My Life, a memoir of her enslavement by the Nazis – her acceptance of the Academy Award for One Survivor Remembers, a documentary based on that work, and the partnering of her Narberth, Pa.-based foundation with the Southern Poverty Law Center to distribute an educational kit based on the movie.

Klein told the students about men and boys being herded into the local synagogue, which was then set ablaze. And she explained that as the war was winding down, she was one of only 120 survivors of a Nazi death march that began with 4,000 women. Klein was eventually liberated by American forces.

"I leave you with the message to think of someone born the same day as you and try to live your life with that person's hopes and dreams," she said. "I get great comfort knowing I have lived a life of doing good deeds."

For the students, many of whom had studied the educational material about Klein, the program made the horror real.

Elise Kohen, a teacher at Lafayette Middle School in Elizabeth, said her eighth-grade students had read Klein's book and seen the movie.

Lafayette student Brenelys Santiago found the program "inspiring" and admired the speakers for rising above the horror of their early years to bring their message to others.

"They had been through so much pain and suffering," she added.

Her classmate Tatiana Ocampo said she realized that to prevent more Holocausts and genocides, people "must respect others no matter what their color, religion, or anything because we all are one community."