To the Editor:
The interfaith vigil for Tree of Life victims held Oct. 29 had at least 2,000 people in attendance. As the crowd thinned at the end, I found myself talking with a woman who had studied with the late wife of Professor Emeritus of Computer Science Peter Wegner, a fortunate escapee from pre-WWII Austria via the Kindertransport scheme, who founded the Faculty Bulletin at Brown among other community activities.
Wegner and other Brown faculty, such as former Professor of Engineering Joseph Kestin, who was in Warsaw when the Nazis invaded Poland but escaped, must have been at the vigil in spirit. Oppression and injury based on hate must be recognized; living in the south of England during WWII, I was twice bombed out of my home before I was 10, and it is very distressing decades later to find the lessons of those times have not been fully taken to heart.
Peter Richardson
Professor of Engineering and Physiology Emeritus
