Rebecca Frankel, CAS/BA ’01, first heard the story of how her childhood rabbi met his wife when she attended Hebrew school at Beth Hillel Synagogue near her home in West Hartford, Connecticut. Years later, as managing editor of Moment magazine, she championed the couple’s appearance in the publication’s Great Love Stories of the Holocaust series. Frankel’s page-turning account of the family’s history, Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love, is a 2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist and one of Smithsonian magazine’s 10 best history books of 2021.
 
What prompted you to transform this story you’d been hearing since childhood into a book?

The stories I’ve found most exciting to work on highlight gripping narratives about things that matter, and the lens is always through human experience. I wanted another story like that in front of me. Rabbi Lazowski has a prominent platform in Connecticut, so his story of surviving as a boy in the [Białowieża Forest along the border between Poland and Belarus] has been more front and center than [his wife] Ruth’s. When I reached out to Ruth, she said, “You will write my story.” Once I realized what she and her younger sister and their parents had experienced in the woods, I knew it was a good story. Whether or not it could be a book would depend on how much I could build it out and fill in all the details. 
 
How did knowing your subjects beforehand affect your research process? 

In some ways [it worked to] my advantage. Rabbi and Ruth, as I call them, are like an extended family, so my going over to visit was always very comfortable. But in other ways I was surprised because when you already have a rapport with someone, there’s an expectation that your conversations are going to flow. Ruth had a particular narrative she wanted to share with me, and when I wanted to go deeper, it was less comfortable for her. The presence of a tape recorder was off-putting, at least initially, so I had to find different ways to prompt her memory and distract her from the formality of an interview as opposed to just sitting around talking. 
 
Did you experience any exciting moments while researching this book? 

My triumphs happened during exhaustive internet searches and coming across Ruth and [her sister] Toby. I was so familiar with their faces that I would be deep in the digital archives of some obscure organization and all of a sudden I would say, “That’s Ruth and Toby!” They were on a class field trip or something and they’re not identified at all, but I recognized them. Those kinds of things were exciting because, like so many holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe during World War II, their lives were upended, their belongings were taken, burned. To find stuff that the family didn’t already have in their possession was great. 
 
Did you uncover anything that took you by surprise?

Many of the holocaust survivors from the towns of Zhetel and Novogrudek whose testimony I researched reported incidents of people suffocating infants or elderly people to keep from being discovered by Nazis. I could tell that they were not hiding in the same place, so this was multiple occurrences in a relatively short period of time. That really struck me. 
 
Why was your research on memory necessary for this project?

I wanted to understand better how holocaust survivors processed traumatic memories. For a lot of people, it was easier to not bring [those memories] into their lives. The Rabinowitz family, as far as I can tell, was unusual in that they talked about the forest all the time. It was not a taboo topic. 
 
Did you have any input in choosing the narrator for the audio version of the book?

I listened to four or five audition tapes of people reading different passages in the book. I wanted people to feel comfortable listening to it because it is difficult material. Natalie [Pela] did real justice to the narrative. She has a connection to holocaust history in her own family, so I know it was meaningful to her as well. 
 
Has there been any talk of a film version?

The project is in an early phase, but there’s a lot of enthusiasm for Into the Forest to become a film or a series. Fingers crossed that it’ll find its way to a screen in some form.
 
What’s next for you?

I’m at the early stages of my research. I couldn’t stop thinking about one of the rabbit holes I went down while researching World War II history for this book. It’s tied into holocaust history, and there’s an intelligence component to it. 

Epilogue 

What genres do you focus on when you’re reading for pleasure?

Novels, memoirs, anything with a good story. I’m so excited that David Sedaris has a new book out [Happy-Go-Lucky]. 
 
What is the last great book that you read?

The Dinner, by Danish writer Herman Koch. I knew something upsetting had happened, but the way the story builds out, you can only guess. It was so well-written; I just went headfirst into it. I would put it down, then say, “No-no-no, I’m going to read one more chapter.” As an adult, it’s really special to be able to sit down and lose myself in a book, especially when I’m working on other things.
 
Best place to read?

I love reading on the beach. It can be such a tranquil setting if the weather’s right, and it’s a luxury to be away from phones and TVs. I go to a lake in Connecticut in the summer, and that’s a lovely place to read. The couch at my parents’ house—with a view of the backyard—was always my favorite reading spot growing up. 
 
Do you have a favorite bookstore?

I can get lost in bookstores for hours, but there’s just something about going into a library, the smell of a library book. My mom took us to the Bloomfield Public Library when I was growing up, and it had a little house in the children’s section where you could sit. I went back recently, and the little house is still there. It brought back very happy memories.
 
You’re struggling to get through a book. Do you push through or put it down?

I try to pick up something else so I don’t lose the pleasure of reading, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t pick up the same book at another time and have better luck with it. 
 
Are there books you like to reread?

By pure coincidence, I was visiting my parents at the beginning of the pandemic and ended up quarantining with them for a few months. Everything was closed, so I reread my entire childhood library, which is still at their house. I was reading Beverly Cleary, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder—all my favorite books from growing up.
 
When I want to get into a particular writing headspace, I’ll read certain things over again, [such as] Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand, or Tracy Kidder’s House. I consider these books examples of master craftsmanship, nonfiction writing that has all the thrill of novelistic narrative. Steeping myself in some of it is like doing warm-ups before a run, a cleansing of my brain and my palate.
 
Any guilty pleasures? 

If reading is pleasurable, there should be no guilt. I may have been bashful about going back and reading all my childhood books, but the kind of adventure and the tenderness of younger human experience found in these books just isn’t replicated in anything else. 
 
You’re hosting a dinner party for three writers—dead or alive. Who’s on the guest list? 

Stephen King and John Irving might be on my list. Judy Blume seems to understand the more formative experiences we all go through; I think it would be fun to sit with her. My grandfather always wanted to be a writer, and I didn’t know this until after he died, so I’d like to invite him.