rom Casablanca, my father was sent to the Algerian city of Oran and from there to nearby Castanel, a town on high cliffs, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Camp life consisted of crowded conditions, long lines and equally long waits for bathing and eating. Little else transpired.

espite the monotony of his daily routine, one aspect of his time in North Africa pleased him greatly. He spent a good deal of time speaking both Spanish and French in the land whose armies had once conquered Spain and that, centuries later, had been colonized by the French.

He once told me, that had he not become a medical doctor, he would have liked to have become a professor of Romance languages (i.e., European languages that evolved from Latin). North Africa had provided him with the opportunity, perhaps for the first time in his life, to indulge his interest.