Erna Blitzer Gorman - April 26, 1984
Physical Healing
You were with the Russians.
What can I tell you about them? They were, they were nice. They saved us and to me they were, they were the greatest people in the world, um... What else to tell you.
Did your hands heal?
Oh no, no. Oh, I, I forgot a whole... I had a... My hands didn't heal 'til I was sixteen or seventeen because... I think it was the malnutrition and uh, it diminished year by year but um, they would um, they would crack open every single winter and uh, 'til I was sixteen, I think. So, it took many years to recover. But um, I forgot to tell you a whole sequence, it just not important at all, it's really... It was just so painful to me. Um, I had um, an infection on my head that was... The whole head was filled with pus, you know. And uh, they, they squeezed this and um, and it would keep on re-in... re-infesting. But the, the most painful time of this particular sequence is they, they put me down in, on my stomach and they cut my... They held me down uh, and they cut my scalp with a knife. And, of course, in those days there was no anesthetic, so, um... After so many years. Um, they um, they squeezed and squeezed. I don't know who did that, but my father was holding me down. That took a number of, of years to, to... It was getting gradually smaller but it was uh, it would come back, it would re-infect over and over again.
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