Thank you for reminiscing over a conversation I frequently have with patients. It is also a discussion that is rapidly declining in frequency as that generation progressively dies. I had a discussion with a Holocaust survivor early in my EMS career as there is a large Jewish population in our area that had many such survivors. The first time I saw one of the tattoos that identified those people to their captors, was one of those moments not easily forgotten.

The patient was stable and I saw the tattoo when taking her pulse. After finishing the assessment and routine questions, I succumbed to my curiosity and asked if it was alright to ask about it. She let go a sign and replied that it was. She then told me the story of how her twenty-something self was subjected to most of the inhumanities we have heard about that were unduly visited upon the Holocaust victims and her survival. I heard much less than the “Reader’s Digest” version and it was still a lot to take in.

The discussions to “pass the time” enroute, have ranged from the boring to interesting, ordinary to bizarre.