In the middle of the night, I was told that one of my closest friends was in a car accident. Now, with her young daughter, who is not even a year old, she is in critical condition. Roxxy has fallen into a coma, and is not responding to any treatment. Little Ember, named after her Godmother and my cousin, at hemingway, has a punctured lung and has little chance of making it out of this...

I was on vacation in Poland, and I can't spell the name of the city, but I visited Auschwitz. I was born into a Jewish family, and I'd always known that not every relative of mine that was intered into a camp had made it out alive.I didn't know what had happened to great uncles, and what would have been second cousins if they were still alive. Until I read the list of victims near the gates to...