Mark Iosifovich Vishik and His Work:
Award Ceremony of the Honorary Doctorate
at the Free University of Berlin

Bernold Fiedler (ed.)
Institut für Mathematik I, Freie Universität Berlin
Arnimallee 2-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Closing Bernold Fiedler
	Mark Vishik with Bernold Fiedler

Thank you, Mark, thank you my dear friend. Just allow me to add what many of us know, and what all of us have felt: how much of an incomparable treasure and privilege it is to work with you - and to just be your friend.

I remember a very few occasions when you yourself mentioned - almost casually - the dark period of your forced exodus from Lviv: 'I then went all the way to Moscow,' you would say, 'and, naturally, I was completely alone.' Sentences which I only began to understand much later ...

And how you continued with another Leitmotiv of all your life: 'But Asya helped me. She always helped me very much.'

My dear Asya, I cannot possibly thank you for all you have done: for Mark, for his friends, and for Science. You have sacrificed your own career as a mathematician, you have truly educated your children, two sons to become eminent mathematicians themselves, and you have been the calm and understanding light all along your joint path.

Instead of offering flowers, which rot away all too soon, let me just symbolically thank you both with small presents to commemorate Berlin and 'German' music, and your sweet stays here.

At the end of our ceremony, let me also thank those who have supported and helped us: Professor Schimansky-Geier and the Sonderforschungsbereich 'Complex Nonlinear Processes' for very generous financial support, as well as the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Free University, Mrs. Straka and her staff at 'Haus am Waldsee', our incomparable Mrs. Loehr, Mrs. Barrett, and Mrs. Wengel for their secretarial assistance, and Dr. Härterich and Dr. Liebscher who invested so much of their time to make this all happen. Finally, let me thank our musicians, Theo and Kensei, for helping us express what words cannot say.

Thank you all: our award ceremony is now closed.

Continue by reading the Appendix.