Out of Despair

I feel a little bit out of place in this gathering. I am hesitant. I was reluctant to be analyzed by one analyst; now, to be analyzed tonight by so many is not something I'm looking forward to. However, as Dr. Stein has mentioned, I have had a long relationship with Mount Sinai. Not only have I given for its School of Medicine the commencement address (which later on caused me many troubles), but more importantly, my son was born here. Trouble? Yes. All of a sudden, word got around that I had something to say to future M.D.s; however, I did not get patients, but I did get invitations to other commencements.

Today is a special day. Since I don't believe in coincidences or in accidents in history—I only believe in encounters—somehow it became clear in my own mind why I'm here today and why I was given this subject. According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the 28th of Nissan. The day I was liberated. And it is symbolic. It means a new beginning.

I remember that day. I remember it vividly even though I remember it as something filled with shadows and darkness with a lot of unknown places in that darkness. It happened at twelve o'clock according to some of my friends, or according to other friends, at three o'clock. But I had lost all sense of time. When the American Army came into that camp, they found some four hundred teenagers in a special barracks. We were already marched out to the gate, ready to follow all the others who had been evacuated earlier. Most of them were killed; we were left behind just by sheer chance. The Americans came in, and I remember the liberators—the soldiers. I remember my strange feelings about them. I felt older than they, although I was so young. I remember a black sergeant. He was angry when he saw what the enemy had done to God's world. He was so angry that he didn't know what to do with his anger, so he began to weep. And I shall not forget his tears.

And, we were free. Free—meaning nobody told us what to do, and therefore we didn't know