On why she was so committed to telling Scheftel's story
I think that what I realized at the very beginning of this project was that the Nazi experiment was not just to exterminate, but to erase — to render people literally unmemorable. And the idea that this woman, Valy, that I sort fell in love with — her letters are gorgeous — could narrate for me her own life and whether she had survived or not survived — at the beginning, I didn't know. But I could allow her to tell us her story herself and push back against what the Nazis had done, which was to suppress her, to take away her humanity. And I thought that this was an opportunity to tell one person's story — a regular person, someone who didn't have big art, someone who you wouldn't have heard of — but someone who might have been someone you knew.
On searching for Scheftel (note: this answer reveals some details from the book, so please skip ahead to the next highlight if you'd like to avoid all spoilers)
When I set out looking for Valy, I was looking for her alone — which was nave, because we're not atoms bouncing around the world without anyone around us. And I discovered I had to look for her community, and the path to that was discovering that someone else had come looking for her before me in the German archives in the '50s. Because Valy had married someone else in January 1943. And it was finding the woman who went in search of Valy and her husband, Hans , that led me to understand Valy's full story.
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The way I did that was by placing a classified ad in old survivor newsletters. And I happened to be in London for a different project — I'm a journalist — a couple months after my ad ran, and I got an email on my last night in town saying, "Imagine my emotion, but the woman you're looking for, the woman who went in search of Valy in the '50s — that woman was her mother." The woman's name is Carol Levine. And she says, "I don't know if you're ever in London, but I have something for you." And I said, "I'm in London until tomorrow at 4, come find me!" And that morning — the next morning — she came and met me and handed me the clues to the whole rest of my story and the whole trajectory of Valy's life.
On what she wishes she could have said to her grandfather, who died before she began this book
His best revenge, in some way, was to live well. And so, I wonder if I could ask him he was able to do that. How was he able to live so big? He had a big life; he loved life. He loved to travel, he loved friends. He loved Vienna, despite everything. I want to know how he was able to tap into that joy because it's something that we could all use.
Read an excerpt of Paper Love