About Ben

Nothing in his worst nightmares could have prepared Ben Levinson for what befell him in 1952 as a twenty-three-year-old medical student. With legs paralyzed from poliomyelitis, he wondered how he could function as a doctor. And how could he marry, have a family, teach his children how to kick a ball or swing a bat?

When Ben was ten years old, his Uncle Abraham came to live with his family after escaping Nazi Germany in 1939. He had been a physician in the slums of Hamburg, ministering to the...