By Lucie Prinz (2014)

My father was a public figure.  He was an activist, a fighter against bigotry, repression and injustice.  He became internationally known for his involvement in causes that fought these evils.   And I am grateful that he passed those ideals on to his children.  But he gave us another gift.

He was, above all, in love with life. Our house was filled with music and art. He took us to museums and concerts and to his favorite ice cream parlor. His library was his most precious possession and he bought us any book we wanted. He loved good food and good wine and parties.  We were not wealthy but he taught us how to enrich our lives.

I now realize that these two aspects of his life were connected.  While his most important battles were against those who enslaved, arrested and murdered innocent people, he also felt that no one should be deprived of the enjoyments that life offered him.  He hated prejudice and poverty, inequality and deprivation. He wanted a world in which no child would be deprived of the joys of music and art and the stories found in wonderful books and even that special kind of ice cream.  It was to the struggle for such a world that he devoted his energies and talents throughout his long life.