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Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080229/ap_on_re_us/holocaust_book_hoax


Writer admits Holocaust book is not true

By MELISSA TRUJILLO, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 29, 5:12 PM ET

BOSTON - Almost nothing Misha Defonseca wrote about herself or her horrific childhood during the Holocaust was true.

She didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis. She didn't trek 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her deported parents, nor kill a German soldier in self-defense. She's not even Jewish.

Defonseca, a Belgian writer now living in Massachusetts, admitted through her lawyers this week that her best-selling book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was an elaborate fantasy she kept repeating, even as the book was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," Defonseca said in a statement given by her lawyers to The Associated Press.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

[...]

Follow the link for the full, sordid story.

This is a fascinating story. But it's not a true story. The author finally admitted that she made it all up. The truth is after the author's parents, non-Jewish resistance fighters in Belgium, were arrested in World War II, she moved in with some relatives who treated her as a traitor. This made her "feel Jewish" and she made up her story to feel better about herself. A shame, an insult and an affront to all those Jewish people who truly suffered. (But nonetheless quite a moneymaker for the author who, before her confession, got a judge to award her tens of millions of dollars from the publisher for unpaid profits from the book.)

Uplifting and entertaining though this story may be, it is impossible to tell how much of it is true. Let's face it, no-one has ever been brought up by wolves, beautiful idea though it is. I would love to believe that wolves would take care of children, bring them up and feed them, but they don't.

There aren't any properly documented examples of wolf-children. It is an urban myth. Most of the "examples" can be traced back to some carnival barker trying to sell tickets to see somebody like "Pogo, the dog-faced boy". Just because a 19th century carny hustler says that a kid was brought up by wolves doesn't make it true.

I'm afraid that Misha either has a faulty memory or is telling an untruth here.

The recent allegations against the truthfulness of Binjamin Wilkomirski's "Fragments" should make us hesitate to accept this story as completely nonfictional. It is hardly surprising that a tragedy of the magnitude of the Holocaust will inspire some accounts which are either fabricated or embroidered in ways that will appeal to a wide public. It is not impossible that Misha Defonseca survived alone in the woods, but improbable that she was adopted by wolves as she claims. There are much better books for people who want to know what happened to children in the Holocaust. I recommend books by Eva Kor, Magda Denes, Cordelia Edvardson and Livia Jackson.

News came out today that the author admitted this story is completely false. Its too bad this talent to write was used in such a decieptful way.

I would like to see the reaction of some of the readers who have reviewed this book over the past ten years. The truth has been revealed. Misha's real name is Monique De Wael and her family wasn't Jewish. She made up this "inspiring" story and presented it as authobiographical. This book shows how easily the public's emotions can be manipulated by unscrupulous writers and how they can be deceived into accepting unprovable facts such as wolves raising children.

This is not true... even the author has admitted it...

Almost nothing Misha Defonseca wrote about herself or her horrific childhood during the Holocaust was true.

She didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis. She didn't trek 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her deported parents, nor kill a German soldier in self-defense. She's not even Jewish.

Defonseca, a Belgium writer now living in Massachusetts, admitted through her lawyers this week that her best-selling book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was an elaborate fantasy she kept repeating, even as the book was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," Defonseca said in a statement given by her lawyers to The Associated Press.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

I hope Amazon and other vendors immediately remove the book(s) from their inventory. People were actually inspired by this story, based on it supposedly being true. For some, it makes one question other stories written in true format.

Indeed a shame.

A story in the March 3, 2008 edition of the New York Times (culture section) reveals that this book is a FAKE. The author has admitted as such. Touting this book as a "memoir" is thus mendacious.

I found this book at the library yesterday after I heard the news (I wanted to see it without paying for it). I read through a lot of it to get the sense of what the book was about, and I am stunned that it has taken this long for the truth to come out. Yeah, it's a fascinating story, but come on people.

The people who bought this book should be given a full refund of their purchase in the same way they would be given a refund if they bought a box of cereal and opened it up to find potato chips. After the author and publisher give back all the money, they should then sell the rights to the true story to Hollywood; this entire story sounds like Pan's Labyrinth: a young girl in the most terrible of times escapes through her imagination into a fairytale of her own.