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Mar
1
Oh well – it’s just that kind of day for this kind of news I guess.
Thanks to SassyMonkey for writing about it.
First, The Boston Globe gives a very thorough rundown and you should read the entire article to fully get it but here’s where it starts:
Massachusetts author [Misha] Defonseca, who wrote “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” admitted Thursday through her lawyer that her memoir was fabricated. Published in 1997 by [Jane] Daniel’s one-woman operation, the book told the tale of a little Belgian Jewish girl who trekked across Europe on foot during World War II, searching for her deported parents and eluding capture by hiding with packs of friendly wolves. The book was a bestseller in Europe, translated into 18 languages, and the basis for a hit French movie now showing across the continent. After documents emerged that discredited Defonseca’s story, her Belgian lawyer issued a statement admitting that she isn’t Jewish and that she spent the war safely in Brussels.
The memoir is a fake, but the bitter 10-year legal war over its rights and its profits is real – and still going on. In 2002, Daniel was hit with a $32.4 million judgment, upheld on appeal, in breach-of-contract suits brought by Defonseca and her ghostwriter, Vera Lee. Since the judgment, Daniel says, she has lost most of her assets, spent a night in jail on a judge’s order, and is about to lose her house, a bed-and-breakfast inn overlooking Gloucester Harbor.
Read the Globe article for the basis of the lawsuits but basically the two co-authors had issues about how they should have been given more attribution and more money, and now the publisher is saying, you know – your story is a fake to begin with.
Another interesting element about the hoax is noted in this article from the CBC:
The writer says she invented the tale because of the hard life she had growing up as an outsider of sorts.
She was often called “daughter of the traitor” because her father was rumoured to have given up information under torture. She was cared for by relatives.
“Apart from my grandfather, I hated the people who looked after me. They treated me badly … [I] always felt Jewish,” she told French newspaper Le Figaro in an article published Friday.
…
The revelation comes amid some controversy that had already been swirling around Defonseca for the past few weeks. There have been rumblings that she was not Jewish in addition to a protracted battle she’s had with her American publisher over royalties.
Oo – I see – just being treated badly is enough to make one feel that they are Jewish? Because what other justification is there to treat you badly except because you are Jewish?
OMG. Sigh.
As I wrote in a comment at Sassy’s thread:
I just wished they’d say, “This is what it is” and leave it there – that is, if it’s a fiction, say it’s fiction. If it’s nonfiction, say it’s nonfiction. I do not understand, esp. if someone is a good writer, why they must feel that they must be the one who experienced what they’re writing about in order for it to be worthy. People who appreciate good writing will like it regardless.
Anyway – that’s what I think. All this plagiarizing and not owning up to what is real and what isn’t – where does this come from!?
Argh.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:37 pm March 1st, 2008 in Business, Courts, Culture, Jewish, Law, Marketing, Media, Scandal, Writing
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27 Responses to “Author Misha Defonseca admits Holocaust memoir is a fake”
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I have a refrigerator magnet that says ‘the only normal people are the ones I have not met yet’- never ceases to amaze me how many odd people are out there. Wasn’t there a Chinese painting found to be fake this week as well?
Unfortunately this not the first fake on the subject. I could not guess why however.
Misha was interviewed today . Here is a link a continuous loop of the original broadcast.
http://www.gcnlive.com/On_Demand_Playlists/whatreally.m3u
Carole – is that right re: the painting? OMG Well, look, I’ve learned enough about mental health to know what can be behind these kinds of behaviors, but that the people who behave this way get so far into the mainstream – that’s what’s disturbing to me. The public liaison guy in government really would be a good one to analyze.
Thanks for the link, James.
RE RADIO LINK:
I may be wrong about who the guest was. I believe it is the publisher who is being interviewed as I listen now. However I am sure this show advertised she would be on. Perhaps next Saturday.
Ditto on the mental health issues Jill but true, how does a book with no factual basis at all get past the ‘checkers?’ I know the publishing industry is continually cutting back, but one would think checking the veracity of someone’s work is paramount in order to protect the publshg company’s reputation? It bewilders me!
The publisher claims she knew it was shaky but could not prove it either way, so she published it with a disclaimer.
That was over a decade ago. The publisher later found out that it was bunk and stopped promoting the book. The publisher was eventually sued successfully for 30 mil by Mischa and her co-author for not promoting a fraud. Mischa then changed the book to cover up obvious errors and re sold the book overseas to 18 different countries.
So to sum it up she has been covering this up for a decade, sued others for her mistakes, and spread a myth across the globe.
I am outraged by this woman’s gross “chutzpah” to lie about her life during this horrific time in the world’s history.Her reasons for not telling the truth from the onset are ridiculous. Also, I feel there are enough sick and ignorant people in this world who never, and still do not,believe that the holocaust existed. I think this just adds fuel to the fire. I am totally disgusted.
Imagination? Ever have pathological liar in your life; they believe there own lies, writers and actors sometimes take on their characters. I have read books and then wondered…is this a true story. I believe sometimes I want it to be true and other times I have to tell myself it is just a character and that it never really happened.
Painful sagas have a deeper impact if they are true stories.
Is manipulation of the perception of others for your own gain wrong?
I would say yes, and if you realize it, guilt is appropriate and denial is not. The best people make the correction or behavior modification without the knowledge of others, that being before they are caught, unfortunately some only stop when caught, they only change with or after they suffer the ridicule of others.
Do not expect that to change, everyone is for himself or herself and god is for everyone. (Modified to be “PC” Irish expression)
Simple it is a lie and lying is wrong, the best you can do is realizing that, move on, and try not to do it again.
I think it is ironic that the author is suffering financially.
I cant imagine the nerve of this liar. i lost relatives i never met because of Adolph Hitler, they died before my birth, but millions suffered and this liar draws breath! she should be strung up by her thumbs and let the holocaust victims and their families stone her. punishment biblical style.
Ever hear the expression “thieves want to get caught” to me I see imagination when a person makes the claim that wolves raised them. To me it is a disclosure one fabrication makes everything questionable. If the author or in this case one of them, was born in 1937 in Belgium and lost both of her parents to the Nazis, I would have asked if she was Jewish. I suspect that the author was asked if she was based on her life story and I think that conversations took place about the people’s fascination with the holocaust within that group, the author and co-authors. People in general seek out those stories, to better understand the level of atrocities and the impact they had on individual lives. Much to do with understanding those events and preventing such things from ever happening again, the need to understand the holocaust translates into books and movies.
Some say why do they have to keep revisiting it, when actually it is best never to stop remembering it.
For sure, the writers concluded that making the character Jewish would sell more books, fiction sells but autobiographies of holocaust survivors sell more. Sad to think that the tragic story of this woman life was in it self not compelling enough, they felt that they had to alter it and embellish it to sell more books.
There are small groups of people that claim the holocaust was made up, that the stories are not true…this is one for them, just one, a little Belgian girl that related herself into the tragedy. Would have her true story sold books…something we will never know.
What is not a good idea is writing a compelling fiction book about the holocaust, there is enough reality there no need to conjure or imagine, even worse to seek notoriety and wealth in that manner. Capitalization on tragedy is heinous.
Carole – agreed re: how did it get past the people who shouldn’t have let it get past.
I know I’m responding a few days later, but another one of these came up this week too – I forget the details – it was a busy week!
James – she was spreading her fabricated story. I am going to assume you don’t mean that the myth she was spreading was anything beyond that, like, oh, let’s say, the Holocaust?
Andrea – it’s pretty outrageous how far this person took it and got it to go. And how many other people had to want to allow it to happen too – for their own reasons which obscured seeing the reality or further questioning what had them confused.
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment. Did you hear about the similar fraud that was revealed this week?
Oengus – re: your first comment in this thread – I agree with pretty much everything in it. The people wanting to believe and so on. What I always want to think about is, why, in the first place. And whatever motivated her in the first place? That’s the core of reasoning behind her conduct.
R. Blumenthal – The stringing up by the thumbs I don’t agree with but I can imagine feeling like you’d want to string her up. What better way, however, is there to make sure other people don’t try the same, or can help catch other instances?
Oengus – I agree that capitalization on tragedy is heinous, but there are plenty of ways in which perpetuating the memory of tragedy can contribute to making other aware. Paper Clips is an excellent example, don’t you think?
Oui c’est odieux,impensible
mes penseés vont vers tous ceux qui ont souffert et non pas de mots pour le dire!
Je pense surtout a mes chers parents déportés!
Comme j’écris mon histoire,je suis concerner qu’on puisse mentir d’une telle façon,oui abominable
Merci beaucoups pour les pensees, Esther. Je parle un peu de francais. Merci.
Yes, JMZ you assume correctly.
I read details of this ‘amazing childs story’ before it was exposed as a fake. I have never seen, or been close to a wild wolf, but had enough sense to know that tame dogs can be dangerous, never mind wolves. The Holocaust was a terrible tragedy, the real wolves wore uniforms and promised ‘first a good shower, then somethinhg to eat, then a rest and tomorrow you can all meet up and get your work detail orders’. Maybe it was Mischa Defonseca [the author] father who wrote this script?
I am doing a paper on this for my history class-I would like to know what her motivation was to write this story.
Crying Wolf
Why did it take so long for a far-fetched Holocaust memoir to be debunked?
http://www.slate.com/id/2185493/
So sad that the Rosenblats lied about their story. Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was a great book and now movie, never pretended to be true. The Rosenblats, like Madoff, harming other Jews and it’s terrible.
I read a New York Times article about Stan Lee and Neal Adams the comic book artists supporting another TRUE Holocaust love story. There was a beautiful young artist, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children’s barracks at Auschwitz to cheer them up. Dina’s art became the reason she and her Mother survived Auschwitz.
Painting the mural for the children caused Dina to be taken in front of Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he decided to make her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber as long as she was doing painting for him.
Dina’s story is true because some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. Also, the story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children’s barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also a fact.
I wish Oprah would do a story about Dina and her art not about the Rosenblats who were pulling the wool over all our eyes.
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