"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.

Published at Islam On-Line

The Romance Story That Was Built on a Lie

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.

See also: Debating the Holocaust