Dancing for Josef Mengele — the man who had just sent her mother to the gas chambers.
She was sixteen years old — a gymnast, a ballet student, a girl in love with Tchaikovsky and the particular discipline of a body trained toward beauty. She lived in Košice with her parents and two sisters, and she believed, as teenagers do, that the world was largely knowable. That spring of 1944, she could not have imagined how completely that would change. The cattle car arrived at Auschwitz in May. Within hours, she was separated from her parents. She never saw them again.
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The Wild Dogs of Tiblisi
The bones were the first warning. My father was deep in the Caucasus Mountains above Tbilisi, Georgia — a Soviet-era assignment that had taken him far from the familiar. He'd spotted a ridge line on his way into the city, the kind a photographer dreams about: a natural balcony above the capital, perfectly angled to catch the final fire of a Georgian sunset pouring copper and blood-orange over ancient rooftops. His driver parked the car but refused to go with him.
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Portraits in Courage: Barack Obama
Before the speeches, before the presidency, Barack Obama lived with a quiet fracture. Raised between cultures, continents, and expectations, he wrestled with belonging—never fully inside one world, never entirely outside another. He questioned who he was allowed to be, and what responsibility came with his gifts. Power, to him, did not feel clean or trustworthy. It felt dangerous if unexamined.
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The Fourth Pearl of Practice: Patience
Once upon a time, a judge told my mother, “Marilyn, you have the patience of a pissant!” Luckily, he was a good family friend, and she took it in stride. It became one of our favorite family legends. As a nurse, my mom was the soul of patience with those in her care—but when it came to her own needs, she wanted what she wanted, and she wanted it now!
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