Saturday, March 01, 2008

That's One Big Ass Fib



Misha Defonseca, the Belgian woman who wrote Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, has admitted that her story was a hoax. rather than try to paraphrase, i will just quote this article:

[...]the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II.

[...]

Defonseca wrote in her book that Nazis seized her parents when she was a child, forcing her to wander the forests and villages of Europe alone for four years. She claimed she found herself trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, killed a Nazi soldier in self-defense and was adopted by a pack of wolves that protected her.
Ms. Defonseca is not even Jewish. her parents were, however, killed by the Nazis because they belonged to the Belgian resistance.

3 comments:

Joe said...

This did sound a little nutso when I read it in yesterday's paper, but I think the world (especially the literary/publishing world) would be better off if they accepted the fact that "memoirs" are only half-true, at most.

I mean, come ON: people actually believed that she had roamed across Europe with a PACK of WOLVES? During World War II? Uh...

I read it in a book; it must be true.

emily1 said...

no kidding. i wondered why the pack of wolves story didn't tip anyone off.

FM said...

pack of wolves in germany? totally untrue! it was actually a pack of hyenas in poland!