Recognition

Doug Grow writes a fascinating piece about Dr. Robert Fisch, a Holocaust survivor and Saint Paul pediatrician who, among other things, was my daughter's pediatrician when she was a baby.

He's also an artist - and quite a fascinating one, with an amazng story:

Fisch doesn't say exactly when he began to see light amid so much darkness.

Perhaps, it came shortly after American troops freed him from a Nazi work camp, Gunskirchen, in Austria. It was among the last camps freed in WWII.

Near death when he was liberated, Fisch suddenly found himself in a startling position. His German oppressors were begging him for food.

"What should I do?" he recalled. "If I did the same thing they did to me, I would be no better than them."

He shared.

He returned to his homeland, Hungary. He studied art and medicine and in 1956 participated in the futile rebellion against Soviet oppression. He escaped and ended up at the University of Minnesota.

A few years ago, he was knighted by the Hungarian government. He's touched by the honor but amused, too.

"One day the government is trying to kill you, the next it's calling you a hero," he said.