The Gates of Hell

Although my novel, A Twist of Hate, takes place in present-day San Francisco, the story has it's beginnings in Paris during the Second World War.

In August of 1941, the first targeted round up of Jews took place in the the 11th and 12th arrondissements of Paris. Between the years 1941 and 1944, approximately 65,000 Jews were deported from the transit camp located in Drancy, a suburb northeast of Paris, most of them to Auschwitz, virtually all of them to their deaths.



Today, the memorial depicted above, sculpted by Shlomo Selinger in 1976 and titled The Gates of Hell, marks the Drancy site. 

The two flanking blocks denotes Death’s Gate; the middle symbolizes a minyan—the quorum of ten required for prayer; and the seven steps (only three are visible here), the seven days of the week, as well as the ascent of the victims' souls.

The two heads at the bottom of the center block represent death, the male and female figures, suffering and dignity. Their arms and hair form the Hebrew letters lamed and vav. Lamed has a numerical value of thirty and vav of six. Together the two letters represent the thirty-six just men who, according to Jewish tradition, are always present in the world to support the oppressed and undermine their persecutors.

The three blocks of stone together make up the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, shin (tooth). For those who are familiar with the tarot, shin equates with the twentieth card of the major arcana: Judgement.



The building behind the memorial is the last of the remaining apartment blocks (La Cité de la Muette) that constituted the Drancy camp. And yes, as inconceivable as it sounds, the building still functions as residential housing today.