At some point during one of the pandemic’s lockdowns, I reminisced about places I had travelled, and thought about where, once the opportunity was available again, I’d like to visit. This was a completely privileged activity, of course. And then I thought about what I do when I travel. Gradually, a pattern emerged. For my entire adult life, I appear to have gravitated towards sites of trauma. I thought about the places I had visited: Auschwitz (twice); Birkenau; Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam; the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana; the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where...