Howard M. Spiro, M.D.

Howard M. Spiro, M.D., director of the Program for Humanities in Medicine and professor of internal medicine (digestive diseases), was among noted speakers at a March 2 convocation in Vienna marking the 60th anniversary of the dismissal of Jewish faculty members from the Vienna Medical School. In his address, The Silence of Words, Dr. Spiro said, “the things that we avoid and don't talk about are the matters that mean the most to us. The shame that has no vent in words makes other organs weep.” According to Dr. Spiro, current officials of the University of Vienna are attempting to recover information that has either been hidden or destroyed and trying to locate former faculty who were interned and exiled. “There is a new generation that has taken over,” says Dr. Spiro, “and they are not afraid to look into these atrocities.”