Into The Forest: A Holocaust Story Of Survival, Triumph, And Love, Frankel - B-

                     In September,1933, Miriam Dworetsky and Morris Rabinowitz were married in Vilna, Poland.  The couple moved to Zhetel, a town of 5,000, 80% of whom were Jews. Daughters Rochel and Tania arrived in 1935 and 1937 respectively. When the war began, Zhetel was occupied by the Soviets. Life went from bad to worse two years later when the Germans came. The Wehrmacht passed through, and then the SS and the Einsatzgruppen arrived. Some of the early roundups that summer missed the extended Rabinowitz family. However, most of Miriam's family was killed in December. In February of 1942, the Jews of Zhetel were moved into a ghetto. A few months later, the liquidation of the ghetto began. Before it was finished that August, the Rabinowitz's fled to the woods hoping to join the partizans. "The Bialowieza Forest was an ancient place...one of the earth's last remaining primeval woodlands." Soon, there were 800 Jews hiding in the woods. When winter began, the Germans stopped hunting and decided to let the weather do their work for them. The following year, Morris spun his group off from the larger one and hid deeper in the forest. The summer of 1943 saw 65,000 German troops attack the forest. Somehow, Morris' evaded the SS and survived. The following summer saw the arrival of the Red Army, and the departure of the Germans. The Rabinowitz's had beaten the odds - the family was alive and intact. Only 200 of Zhetel's Jews made it. Morris took his family to Lublin and began to plan an escape to Palestine. In 1946, they boarded a train for Austria and walked into Italy. The UN's DP camps provided the Jews with housing, food and a return to some sort of normalcy.  The opportunity arose to go to America and the Rabinowitz's took it. They settled in Hartford, where they prospered.  Rochel, now known as Ruth, fell in love and married Phillip Lazowski. Life had come full circle: a dozen years earlier, Miriam had let a young Phillip join her and the girls as the family survived the first selektion in Zhetel. Tania married a few years later. Morris and Miriam died in the early 1980's. Their life was a testament to love.