Readings, Reviews, Interviews
Reviews and Upcoming Readings
Presentation and Reading, Annual Roosevelt Reading Festival, Hyde Park, NY, June 21, 11:00 am. FDR Presidential Library and Museum, Henry A. Wallace Center. Free public event, registration is not required.
Newspaper Review
San Diego Jewish World, May 29, 2025:
"This memoir of the Frenkels took me a few weeks to read as it was very painful and emotionally disturbing. Karen mentions she also had to take mental breaks from researching or discussing Holocaust material for her own mental health. I could imagine the scenes in my head as if I were watching a film unfold." ––Cailin Acosta
Customer Reviews
Goodreads.com
Five Stars Not Your Average Holocaust Memoir
"An extraordinary story, beautifully rendered, about the horror of war, hatred and displacement, and a meticulous reconstruciton of one famly's journey through the darkest hears of history." --Barbara Grossman
Amazon.com
Five Stars An Excellent Exploration of a Family's History
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2025
Verified Purchase
Karen Frenkel's Family Treasures Lost & Found is a compelling personal history of her parents, both survivors in different ways. Her father was able to flee Europe prior to World War II and went back to serve with the United States Army. Her mother, under a false gentile identity, endures slave labor in Germany. They meet in New York where her father becomes a successful doctor and her mother continues her education. They raise three daughters. As in many families with Holocaust and wartime histories, discussion and reflection of the past is limited but always present in large and small ways. It is this void that Ms Frenkel, an excellent writer with a background in journalism, meticulously explores detailing the experiences of not only her parents, but other members of her extended family. It is fascinating, sad and beautiful. The canon of Holocaust history is vast, but it is books such as this that make it real. We will never be able to make sense of what happened, but the personal stories of those impacted are vital in our attempt to comprehend the past.
--Seth Bornstein
Five Stars A Family's Holocaust Experiences in Poland and Germany
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2025
Verified Purchase
Readers interested in accounts of Holocaust survival will find this book very interesting. The author has delved into her parents' and grandparents' experiences during WWII and the Holocaust to produce a very well written book telling their stories. These include stories of her mother's survival as a slave laborer in Germany living under a false identity as a Polish Catholic until liberation in 1945, and the survival of one of her grandparents in Lwow Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), where he escaped from the ghetto the Nazis established there, stayed in hiding for almost a year with other Jews on the "Aryan" side of Lwow, and escaped from their hiding place when the Gestapo came to arrest them. He subsequently escaped from Poland to Hungary in 1944, which had also come under German occupation, then to Romania, Turkey, and his ultimate destination, Mandatory Palestine. This book is well worth reading and is highly recommended. --Dan
Five Stars The history of one woman's journey into her families past.
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2025
Verified Purchase
This was an amazing book. One women's journey into the history of her family. A must read for everone. --Debbie Reidbord
Five Stars Touching memoir
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2025
"A memoir written by the authors famly during WWII.Very well researched. I enjoyed the history and truth of their lives." --autyde
"This memoir of the Frenkels took me a few weeks to read as it was very painful and emotionally disturbing. Karen mentions she also had to take mental breaks from researching or discussing Holocaust material for her own mental health. I could imagine the scenes in my head as if I were watching a film unfold." ––Cailin Acosta
Interviews
Online in Print
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, with journalist Deborah Kalb, March 12, 2025
Author's Guild Spotlight on my memoir, March 2025
Podcasts and Radio
Open Air, with Dawn Newton, "Karen A. Frenkel | Family Treasures Lost and Found," on KBOO, YouTube and IVOOX, Portland, OR, May 19, 2025
iHeart Media, Rebecca Hughes, Virginia Focus - Family Survival Stories, May 2, 2025 • 30 mins
WPHM AM Paul Miller Show, 1380 Port Huron, MI, April 7, 2025
Talkline with Zev Brenner, "Digging Up Your Parent's Shoah Past," April 8, 2025
New Books Network with Ari Barbalet, April, 2025:
Podcasts Worth a Listen, Audacy April 2025
Biography, Castbox, April 9, 2025
New Books in Genocide Studies Marshall Poe on Spotify
New Books in Genocide Studies Marshall Poe on Apple Podcasts
New Books in Genocide Studies on Apple Podcasts
New Books in Genocide Studies Marshall Poe on PodcastAI
New Books in Genocide Studies Marshall Poe on MusixMatch
New Books in Genocide Studies Marshall Poe on Poddtoppen
KAHI-AM Mary Jane Popp Podcast, Sacramento, CA, March 27, 10025
You can hear the interview with me at 28 minutes 39 sec when Popp says, "Should we be concerned that we lose the history of survival? What if you didn't know about your parents' survival stories?"
Ira's Everything Bagel, Syndicated Podcast, March 24, 2025
WGVU-FM, Shelley Irwin Show, Grand Rapids, MI, March 12, 20025
WCUB-AM Craig Dillon, Breakfast Club, Green Bay, WI, March 11, 20025
WPTF-AM, Audacy.com, Chris Edwards, News Talk, Raleigh, NC, March 11, 20025