Physically, I was totally enslaved.
I had no control of life. Spiritually, I could think and feel what I wanted.
And I remember one time, when I was in Auschwitz,
and I felt the burden,
the bitter taste of slavery.
And I felt if I would have a pencil and paper now, I would write a poem,
but there was no pencil and paper.
My earthly possessions was what I wore and the bowl--
the enamel bowl from which we got the soup.
So I wrote a poem in my head,
and when I was liberated, I came here to America.
Of course, I couldn't speak a word of English-- was constant adjusting...
from one to the other-- so that was among my first poems.
I would like to share it.
"I feel like a bird with clipped wings...
"tied to this earth by invisible strings,
"chained to a destiny I did not choose.
"I feel like a prisoner that cannot break loose.
"I look at the sky with a heavy sigh,
but my wings have been clipped, and I can no longer fly."
And then I realized that the concept of freedom...
is a bird in flight and not a bird in the cage.
And I pledged to myself...
if I'll get out, I will never use brute force.
I will never try to force somebody to do something.
But neither will I allow other people to do it.
I understood the concept of freedom.
I understood what my forefathers--
what the Jews in Egypt-- the Israelites in Egypt-- must have felt like.
And I realized that there is no substitute for personal experience--
from knowledge derived from personal experience.
I realized then that nothing in the world-- no textbook, no professor,
not the best college could teach me what my experience taught me,
because I got to know myself, who I am--
how much I could endure, how much I could understand,
how much I could feel and what I've became.