“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” – Richard Bach – Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
This week Dr Emanuel Tanay completed his mission.
Born in 1928 in Vilna, Poland, as Emek Tenenwurzel, Dr Tanay was an American physician, a forensic psychiatrist and a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Most importantly for us, he was Danita’s uncle.
I had the privilege of meeting him a few years ago when Danita & I travelled to the US to visit him and his lovely wife, Sandy.
He was a delightful character and a few things still stand out for me which is how I remember him:
I was showing him how to use Google and we did a search on Holocaust. As a survivor and a doctor who had worked and written about survivors and killers he was particularly interested in what we’d find. One thing came up which I was very surprised by his reaction – the heavy metal band “Holocaust”.
I expected outrage and anger that the experience he and many of his friends and family had gone through had been trivialised by a band. Instead, he was delighted and made comments like “I’ve been there and now I can get the tee-shirt”. This surprised me and gave me some insight into the depth and compassion of this man.
Also, doing that visit I had the opportunity to hear him speak about some of his experiences in the American Legal System (as a result of spending time with him I refuse to call it a Justice System but that’s my words not his).
He was a consultant in some very high profile murder cases including Jack Ruby and Sam Sheppard (which later became the TV series The Fugitive). These experiences were documented in two of his books: “The Murderers” and “American Legal Injustice: Behind the Scenes with an Expert Witness.”
He was vociferous about the stupidity of a system where the coroner is an elected position. He told me of a number of examples, a couple of which I still remember clearly.
In one instance the coroner arrived at the murder scene and without going into the house or looking at any evidence announced “The husband did it”. This was the Sam Sheppard case. Even though the physical evidence was such that it couldn’t have been him the husband was still found guilty.
Another example was of a person who was universally disliked by the people of the town in which he lived. The man was discovered with his body in one room and his head in another. The coroner declared it was suicide.
So, my experience of “Uncle” Emek was of a man who was a deep thinker, a man of great compassion and insight and someone who was willing to explore the dark side of humanity.
While he’s sorely missed he felt he’d finished and was ready to die. He commented that he hadn’t expected to see 16. Having reached 86 was an enormous gift of which he made full use.