Elie Wiesel survived the
camps with his father. Just before the Russian Army arrived to liberate
Auschwitz, Elie and his father decided to go with the Nazi guards to
Buchenwald.
In 1956 When Wiesel wrote his first version
of Night in Yiddish he didn't mention gas chambers. He next published
the La Nuit in French in 1958 but he didn't mention gas chambers.
In 1960 he released the same book in English, but he didn't mention gas
chambers. After nearly twenty years and three versions of Night, gas chambers
were mentioned in Elie
Wiesel's 1962 German edition through a mistranslation of "crematoria" as Gaskammern.
Truth is a pragmatic construct for Elie Wiesel.
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"I ask for forgiveness from all those who feel
betrayed," said De Wael.
Fake Best Holocaust Memoir
"I ask for forgiveness from all those who feel
betrayed," said De Wael.
he best-selling Holocaust autobiography over the past ten years has turned
out to be fiction and a story of the prolific imagination of its Catholic
writer, who made millions of dollars out of claiming to be a Jewish victim
of the Nazi, The Independent reported on Saturday, March 1.
"The book is a story, it's my story," the writer said in a statement
issued under her real name, Monique De Wael.
"I ask for forgiveness from all those who feel betrayed."
From 1997, when best-selling "A Memoir of the Holocaust Years," De Wael, a
Belgian but lives now in the US, had been hoodwinking readers worldwide
into buying her memoir.
Taking the name Misha Defonseca in her book, De Wael, now 71, claimed to
be the daughter of Jewish parents, who had been carted off to a Nazi
concentration camp during World War 11.
It tells the story of eight-year-old Misha, who trekked across
Nazi-occupied Europe during the World War II, searching for her missing
parents.
She collapsed in a forest but was rescued by pack of wolves who adopted
her as their cub.
Today and just a few weeks after a film adaptation, Survivre Avec Les
Loups (Surviving with Wolves), premiered in France, it has been revealed
that not only did De Wael invent the story but that she is the
Roman-Catholic daughter of an alleged wartime collaborator.
De Wael had admitted under pressure and hard evidence from Belgian
newspaper Le Soir that she had fabricated the Holocaust tale.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Holocaust refers to "systematic
state-sponsored killing of Jewish men, women, and children and others by
Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II."
The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million.
But the figure has been questioned by many European historians and
intellectuals, chiefly French author Roger Garaudy.
"Good Faith"
De Wael said she invented the story because of an inner complex that made
her feeling victimized as Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
"Yes, my name is Monique De Wael, but I have wanted to forget it since I
was four years old," she said in her statement.
"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."
The only truth in her story seems to have been the disappearance of her
parents, who were deported for their membership of the Belgian resistance
movement.
"My parents were arrested and I was taken in by my grandfather, Ernest De
Wael, and my uncle, Maurice De Wael. I was called 'daughter of a traitor'
because my father was suspected of having talked under torture in the
prison of Saint-Gilles. Ever since I can remember, I felt Jewish," she
added.
De Wael's fake memoir had been translated into 18 languages.
She has recently received £100,000 for the French rights to her memoirs.
She also won a £10million court case in April 2005 against her American
publisher for allegedly withholding royalties and not doing enough to
market the book.
De Wael's lawyer said the fiction story was written in "good faith."
"It matters little whether the account is real or partly allegorical, it
is the product of absolute good faith, a cry of suffering and an act of
courage," Marc Uyttendaele said.
Herman Rosenblatt is following the lead of
Elie Wiesel who famously stated that "Somethings that are true never
happened." Herman Rosenblatt blatantly lies and defends his lie as a truth
in his imagination and undaunted by this conflict between reality and his
fantasy, would do it again. Such is the power of the willingness to lie
for a Zionist dream of power over the "goyim" , the Talmudic word for
"cattle." Oprah Winfrey featured Herman and his wife on her television
program twice. No apology has yet been broadcast so strong is the
necessity to participate in the lie to remain on nation-wide television.
Stolen Soul
UWA Press has pulled copies of Stolen Soul
from bookshops after a private investigator was called in to probe the
author's background.
The book, written by Secret Harbour man Bernard Holstein -- whose real
name is Bernard Brougham -- claims to be "the amazing true story of
survival and mateship in Auschwitz".
The publisher describes the book as "an epic read full of stories of how
Bernard underwent experiments, assisted the Underground and even escaped,
only to be recaptured and subjected to even greater torture".
But this week a UWA Press spokeswoman admitted the publishing house
removed the book because of doubts about the author's credibility.
A fake Auschwitz tattoo
Initially, it was convinced of the
authenticity of the memoirs of Brougham, who sports a tattoo of the number
111404 on the inside of his left arm, similar to those given to Jews by
the Nazis.
Brougham, 69, a mining camp cook, says his story is true -- but concedes
he may never be able to prove it.
"It is true, it did happen," he said, acknowledging he had little to
support his claims and might never convince his detractors that his death
camp experiences were real.
He has no immigration papers, no German birth certificate and no living
witnesses who could verify his arrival in Sydney from a post-war holding
camp in Cyprus.
"All I have is what is in my memory," he said. "But I have got nothing to
hide. This book is an account of what happened in my life.
"I am not a liar, what I have written is true. People might ask how a boy
who was only nine at the time can remember what happened in so much detail
but I can tell you, once you step through the gates into the barracks at
Auschwitz, you instantly grow up. I remember everything. I still have
nightmares about it."
On the strength of the book Brougham was invited to talk to schoolchildren
at the Holocaust Institute in Yokine.
His story was questioned when his NSW foster family called UWA Press
claiming that not only was he not born in Holstein, Germany, as he said,
but he was not Jewish.
By this stage the book had sold out its first print run and Brougham was
already at work on a sequel, revealing how he fled to Australia after
Auschwitz was liberated.
A private investigator employed by UWA Press claims that Brougham was born
in country NSW [New South Wales, Australia], baptised a Roman Catholic in
1942, made his Confirmation in 1952 and even spent time in a seminary
training to become a priest.
Brougham says he was raised as a Catholic in Australia and his
step-parents never discussed his Jewish heritage.
He said he would take a DNA test to prove he was not related to his five
step-siblings in a bid to authenticate his story and convince UWA Press
that it was true.
"I remember that three doctors who were members of the Underground
(resistance fighters) told me that 'one or two or three of you boys are
going to get out of this hell hole and you must tell the world what
happened here'," he said.
In the book he claims that a tearful exchange with a German tourist
several years ago convinced him to write his memoirs, which cost him about
$70,000 to have ghost-written and published.
The book has been selling on the Angus & Robertson website for $26.95 and
Brougham has made several book-signing appearances.
Publicity for the book said Bernard Holstein "endured two years of hell"
at Auschwitz. Despite his ordeal, "Bernard survived and has now fulfilled
his promise to tell the story the world needs to know. Stolen Soul is
Bernard's story. His memories, his tears, his belief in the human spirit
are all contained within its pages."
Irene Zisblatt Caught Lying Twice in Her
Own Words
Irene first tells the story that the Nazis
warned that 5 inmates would be murdered for each person who commits
suicide by electrocution on the barbed wire fence. Then she exaggerates
that to 100. In another portion of her interview, Irene claims that her
brother died of disease because he could not be taken to medical help, but
in her autobiography she claims that he survived the disease and died in
the Nazi concentration camp. That's the problem with any story that is not
based on a real experience: it's so easy to forget what story you've told
when and to whom. The lie is slippery and ephemeral...it's difficult to
keep track of the artificial constructs of the ego-mind.
