In the feature documentary of Family Treasures, journalist Karen A. Frenkel channels the driving force of discovery to investigate her parents’ unspoken WWII stories. She marvels at the results of her research as she learns the truth underlying the loss of relatives. By documenting their pasts, they become more than names.
How do you do genealogical research? Treasures guides you though five steps: 1. Oral History: talk to people you know 2. Google Anything: have fun 3. Sleuthing Archives: get serious 4. Value of Visiting: travel to the places 5. Family Tree: see how the puzzle fits together
Between assignments as a technology journalist, I googled my parents’ names. What was I hoping to find? Both were Polish Jews--one a refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 1939 and the other survived the Holocaust as a slave laborer. So much had already been written about the Holocaust. But I had access to my mother's oral history and a massive collection of inherited portraits, photographs, letters from her family’s prosperous Jewish life in Poland before WWII. These treasures inspired me to embark on the family history quest detailed in the documentary and the five-part doc series. I’m also writing a memoir that includes many details we had to leave out.
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