Misha Defonseca

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Misha Defonseca born in 1937 as Monique de Wael, is a Belgian-born writer and the author of a fictitious Holocaust memoir titled Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, first published in 1997 and at that time professed to be a true memoir. It became an instant success in Europe and was translated into 18 languages.[1] The French version of the book[2] was a derivative work based on the original with the title Survivre avec les loups that was published in 1997 by the Éditions Robert Laffont; this second version was adapted into the French film Survivre avec les loups (Surviving With Wolves).

On 29 February 2008, the author as well as her lawyers admitted that the bestselling book was a hoax, despite its having been presented as autobiographical.[3] In 2014 a court ordered Defonseca to repay her publisher $22 million. [4]

Biography

Defonseca and her husband, Maurice, moved to the United States from Paris in 1988 and bought a house in Millis, Massachusetts. He was unemployed by the mid-1990s. Misha began to fantasize a vivid story about her childhood; suggesting to have wandering across Europe at the age of six after her parents were deported in 1941, being sheltered by friendly packs of wolves, killing a German soldier in self-defence, sneaking into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto, and finally supposedly finding her way home at the end of the war.[1] Jane Daniel, a local book publisher, convinced Defonseca to write a memoir about her alleged past after she heard the writer tell the story in a Massachusetts synagogue.[5] Daniel published Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years in 1997 through her "one woman operation", Mt. Ivy Press.[1]

Prior to the uncovering of the hoax, the book had spawned a multimillion-dollar legal battle between Defonseca and the book's ghostwriter, Vera Lee, against Jane Daniel and her small publishing company, Mt. Ivy Press. Daniel and Defonseca fell out over profits received from the best-selling book, which led to a lawsuit. In 2005, a Boston court ordered Daniel to pay Defonseca and Lee $22.5 million. Defonseca's lawyers said Daniel has not paid the court-ordered sum.[5] Following her admission, a court in 2014 ordered Defonseca to repay the full amount. [6]

Despite its followers, the book also had many critics who pointed to passages that were logically or historically implausible. The first person who publicly doubted the authenticity of the story was Henryk M. Broder, who wrote an article about Defonseca in 1996 for the German newspaper Der Spiegel.[7] In late February 2008, a baptismal certificate from a Brussels church for a Monique De Wael and a register from an elementary school near the De Waels' home that shows Monique enrolled there in September 1943—two years after Misha claimed to have left Brussels—, were posted by Jane Daniel on her blog.[8] Belgian national newspaper Le Soir soon reported on these findings.[9] Finally the leading historian of the Shoah in Belgium, the late Dr. Maxime Steinberg, pointed out the historic anomalies and errors in the story.[10]

On 29 February 2008, Defonseca admitted to Le Soir that she had fabricated the tale, after having been presented with what the paper described as "irrefutable" evidence that her story was false.[11] "The book is a story, it's my story", said the writer in a statement issued under her real name. "It's not the true reality, but it is my reality. There are times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world."[12] Defonseca told Le Soir that she had always wanted to forget her real name because she had been called "the traitor's daughter."

Forensic genealogists Sharon Sergeant and Colleen M. Fitzpatrick led the team which was instrumental in uncovering the hoax.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ In her blog, Jane Daniel explains the differences between the original English (Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years) and the French edition.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Verliebt in eine tote Kobra, Der Spiegel 50/1996, 09 Dec. 1996
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Maxime Steinberg: Homepage.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Caleb Daniloff, Untrue Stories, a genealogist reveals the painful truth about three Holocaust memoirs: they're fiction. Bostonia (Alumni Magazine of Boston University)

External links


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