“As a survivor of the Holocaust, I lost the life I led more than 60 years, when the world didn’t give a damn on, like today, acknowledge that a storm of destruction was imminent (‘The lost City’, Sept, 12). Sitting in my comfortable, dry home watching the horror of New Orleans made me cry the tears I didn’t have when I was a child losing everything, feeling with just the clothing I wore that day. More than 60 years ago, I was on a different continent. The disaster that unfolded in front of my eyes today took place in my adopted country, among my adopted people. “We didn’t know” is an unpardonable excuse. “We didn’t care” is more like it. Without hesitation, America spends billions and wastes human life in a country that is not interested in democracy. Yet we quibble about the cost of Katrina, a cost that will affect everyone in our own backyard for years to come.”

(Lucie L. Liebman – Staten Island, New York)