September 29, 2022,

Rebecca Frankel is the author of the New York Times best-selling book War Dogs: Tales of Canine Heroism, History, and Love, and Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love. Frankel held her book talk and signing on September 29th in Wilde Auditorium. She is best known locally for recording the inspiring story of the Rabinowitz family who narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love was named a 2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist and one of Smithsonian Magazine’s “Ten Best History Books of 2021.”

Over five years, Frankel interviewed family members including the Rabinowitzes’ eldest daughter, Ruth Lazowski of West Hartford. Frankel wanted to understand how they made it through brutal winters, typhus, and merciless Nazi raids before liberation in 1944 by the Red Army. She also researched the story behind their story: discovering how both Jewish partisan fighters and other families like the Rabinowitzes struggled to overcome the elements of the woods.

Rebecca is also a West Hartford native and was the executive editor of Foreign Policy’s print magazine and managing editor of Moment magazine. Her editing work has received multiple accolades including a Polk Award for coverage of the 2015 MSF Hospital bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan. She’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, and has been a guest on Conan, PBS NewsHour, and the Diane Rehm Show, among others.