Into the Forest

June 14, 2021
Journalist Frankel (War Dogs) recounts in this gut-wrenching yet inspirational history how a Polish Jewish family survived the Holocaust by hiding in the Bial
owiez
a Forest in eastern Poland for almost two years. The story is framed by college student Philip Lazowski’s chance reconnection, in the U.S. in 1953, with Miriam Rabinowitz, the woman who had saved his life in April 1942 by claiming him as her own child during the first “selection” of Jews in the Zhetel ghetto. Drawing on extensive interviews with the Rabinowitz family and other survivors, Frankel recreates their desperate struggle to stay alive during the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1942. Amid the grim details, including adults suffocating infants in order to prevent their cries from revealing hiding spots, Frankel weaves in moments of remarkable resilience and good fortune. In particular, she describes how lumber dealer Morris Rabinowitz used his familiarity with the forest and relationships with local Christian farmers to help keep his family and other Jewish refugees alive until the Soviets took control of the area in 1944. The stroke of luck that led to Lazowski’s reunion with Miriam Rabinowitz and his marriage to her daughter Ruth in 1955 mirrors the random twists of fate that enabled the family to survive, while so many others didn’t. Readers will be on the edge of their seats.

Starred review from September 1, 2021

Frankel (War Dogs: Tales of Canine Heroism, History, and Love) has written a fascinating and captivating account of one Jewish family, the Rabinowitzes, living in Poland before and during World War II. In 1942, the Nazis forced Polish Jews, including the Rabinowitz family, into ghettos. From the Zhetel Ghetto, the Rabinowitzes escaped to the nearby Bialowieza Forest, where they built shelters and lived for two years, surviving bitter cold, illness, starvation, and the ever-present threat of being caught. Frankel writes that luck was on the Rabinowitzes' side when they found old family connections who kept them safe until the Red Army seized control of the area in 1944. Fast forward to Brooklyn, NY, in 1954, when the story comes full circle because of a chance meeting. Frankel draws on primary source materials, including interviews with members of the Rabinowitz family, to create a beautifully written account of escape and survival that will engage readers from the start. She shares her subjects' stories with sensitivity and care. VERDICT This fast-paced book will find an eager audience among readers interested in Jewish, European, and World War II history; highly recommended.--Jacqueline Parascandola, Univ. of Pennsylvania

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2021
Frankel, author of the best-selling War Dogs (2014), tells the extraordinary story of Miriam and Morris Rabinowitz's enduring love and their determined struggle to survive in eastern Poland during the Holocaust. The Rabinowitzes fled with their young daughters into the "primeval" Bialowieża Forest to elude the Nazis. For two years they withstood harsh conditions and constant threat of discovery. Thousands died in the forest, but the Rabinowitzes lived to emigrate to America. Through their story, and those of their relatives, friends, and neighbors, Frankel explores the intersections of history, circumstances, and chance that drive fate; ultimately, a twist of fate brought the author together with the Rabinowitzes. Her well-flowing narrative includes synopses of crucial political and military episodes. Backstories and telling details bring major and minor characters to life. Sisters recall the minutiae of treasured dresses; a Nazi's "immaculate black boots" epitomize his deadly indifference. The Rabinowitzes gave Frankel access to a trove of family documents, photos, and memories for this account of a lesser-known chapter of the Holocaust, which includes source notes and citations.

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Starred review from August 15, 2021
How one Jewish family from a small Polish village survived the Holocaust. In her latest book, former Foreign Policy executive editor Frankel focuses on the Rabinowitz family of Zhetel, a "very happy little Jewish town" of about 5,000 during the 1930s. Morris and Miriam Rabinowitz had a large house on the town's main street, with Miriam's medicine shop on the main floor. Their two daughters, Rochel and Tania, were born about a year apart in the mid-'30s. Morris, a lumber merchant, had an intimate knowledge of the nearby woodlands, information that later became critical to the family's survival. "His job took him to the town's edges and deeper into the Polish Christian farming community, where Morris traded not just in lumber, but in the currency of relationships," writes the author. Toward the end of the decade, life in Zhetel changed rapidly--first with the nonaggression pact between the Nazis and Soviets, leading to Russian occupation of the eastern section of Poland, and then with the German invasion in June 1941. The Germans targeted Polish Jews, crowding them into ghettos and murdering them in "selections" based on the victims' short-term value to the occupiers. At one point, Miriam claimed to be the mother of a young boy from a nearby town who was there without his family, a courageous act that saved the boy from certain death. Recognizing the urgent need to get away from German control, the family escaped to hide in the nearby forest, where they survived the war despite terrible privations. Frankel follows the family after liberation, when, after failing to gain entry to Israel, they ended up in the U.S. Her book, based on interviews with family members and original documents, is full of telling details about life before, during, and after the Holocaust. While the central events are harrowing, the text has a gratifying ending. A gripping story of one family's courage and resourcefulness under life-threatening conditions.

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