Lilacs

The sign above the gate read “Arbeit Mach Frei.”

It was May 12, 2011 and I found myself literally staring at the gates of hell. The entrance to the most notorious of all the Nazi Death Camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Being here was completely unexpected. A week previously I had been in my office on 5th Avenue, directly adjacent to Madison Square Park, when my boss, Kobe, had phoned from Israel. He and another associate from our…