Advance Praise for Family Treasures Lost & Found Memoir
"When a technology journalist turns her forensic skills to her own family, a unique detective story unfolds . . . . This beautifully written book, really two stories in one, is not only about what the author found. It is also a journey of discovery. Karen A. Frenkel demonstrates what truths can be revealed, despite decades of silence and gaps in the record, and inspires others to embark on their own journey. A must read."
—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator, the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and Professor Emerita, New York University
"Karen A. Frenkel has gifted us with a deeply researched, profoundly moving journey before, during, and after the Nazi era of horror, death, escape, refuge. Her memoir is brilliant, gripping, haunting . . . the perfect read for this moment. Everyone concerned about humanity's ongoing struggle for empathy, survival, and human rights will benefit from Frenkel's vision, family love, and hope."
—Blanche Wiesen Cook, Professor Emerita, John Jay College and the Graduate Center CUNY, author of Eleanor Roosevelt and The Declassified Eisenhower
"Frenkel's remarkable memoir shifts the paradigm that assumed Holocaust survivors continued to be victims after the war . . . . This beautifully written, intensely engaging memoir also chronicles novel expressions of the rise of antisemitism in institutions of medical education, juxtaposed to individuals who risked their lives to save Jews. The tapestry Frenkel weaves with much persistence is inspirational."
—Eva Fogelman, author of Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust and writer and co-producer, Breaking the Silence: The Generation After the Holocaust
"With the rise of active global antisemitism, Frenkel's memoir is most compelling and much needed . . . . This memoir enables readers to absorb the most outrageous acts society can perpetrate on its members."
—Arthur Flug, Executive Director, Kupferberg Holocaust Center, Queensborough Community College (Retired), and author, Untermenschen: A History of Targeting Others for Inequality, Hatred and Suffering
Advance Praise for Family Treasures Lost & Found Documentary
Karen A. Frenkel has unlocked her family treasures, once brought home in plastic bags, to tell the story of her parents' and grandparents' ordeals during the Holocaust. Her research was prodigious, her work indefatigable, and her courage admirable. As we follow their stories, the history of the Shoah unfolds, the world before, the diverse ways in which these Jews faced their fate and made life and death choices—even choiceless choices—how they dealt with the legacy of their struggle, some in silence, and some in words. As the child of survivors, Frenkel uncovers her past but the story she tells is not just personal for we begin to feel that her family could be ours. Her exploration of the past is engaging. Family Treasures is truly a treasure.
—Michael Berenbaum, rabbi, Holocaust educator, historian, museum curator, and author, includng A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors, Elie Wiesel: God, the Holocaust, and the Children of Israel, After Tragedy and Triumph: Essays in Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience.