Kurt Ellias: "One should never give up, for there are always some people who care and accept. Let's hope that somebody will find a way to combat hatred. When 9/ 11 happened, I did not think there could be that much hatred in the world again". Dr Siegel: "Dr. Kurt Elias is a friend of mine from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx where I spent much of my career. Dr. Elias started the 'psychosocial rounds' in the oncology department, and I am indebted to him for teaching me this very important field. He was responsible for bringing Rene Dubas and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to the center, and their lectures inspired me to think about hospice work and to create one of the first hospices in the United States. Kurt is a very sensitive, caring physician. One of his patients was Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt's daughter, Anna. I helped him with her terminal care." I was a subject of the Holocaust and can only contribute my survival to luck. I am the offspring of an anti-Semitic German family, the von Arnims. and a well-connected Viennese Jewish family. · My mother's father was a famous Greek scholar. represented in the background by a portrait bust. My mother. a von Arnim. was an artist who turned to nursing and in so doing met my father during the First World War. My father was a well-known professor of internal medicine. They married but argued for their entire life and eventually divorced. I was in the Austrian Army before Hitler marched into Vienna and did not experience anti-Semitism there. When Hitler came to Vienna. I was in medical school. Then life in Vienna fell apart.as did my own. I felt destitute. On a beautiful spring day, March 13. 1938, I walked to the main square in Vienna. Here. in this square. stand many historical sculptures among which lilacs bloom in profusion. The entire square had the scent of lilacs. I thought. "These flowers bloom and die and then they return every year." I felt sure this was a sign that I, too. could survive. I turned to my mother and through her connections we found a way for me to escape to the United States. Though I initially lived in poverty. I completed medical school. Married. and had three successful children. I am now married to my second wife. Gloria. who is a psychiatrist.