Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis.
By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.
My heart goes out to victims and survivors of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and to their families. This disaster will go down in history books as one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history.
When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.
My original interest in the Nazi holocaust was personal. Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis.
There are a lot of recent pics of me rocking silk strings of beads. They're made by survivors of the sex trade in Cambodia who were rescued by one of the organizations I support.
Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.
I'm not interested in playing the victim. I like stories about survivors.
Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.
Disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, oil spills and radioactive fallout cause massive death of people, pigs, bats and birds. These disasters also impact the immune health of survivors. All harbor viruses.