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Robert's European History Blog

By Robert Wilde, About.com Guide to European History since 2001

Bestselling Holocaust Memoir is Fake

Saturday March 8, 2008
Belgium author Misha Defonseca’s 1997 memoir of the Second World War - Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years – has been translated into eighteen languages, made into a movie in France and has now been revealed as an almost complete fake. Her parents were not deported by the Nazis, although she now claims they were killed for being part of the Belgium resistance, nor did she travel 1,900 miles across Europe to find them, nor was she anywhere near the Warsaw ghetto in which she claimed she was trapped. In fact, she never left Brussels during the war. The facts came to light after genealogical researcher Sharon Sergeant grew suspicious and dug into the real story. Critics have been quick to wonder why it took this long to expose the author, given that at one point she claims to have lived with a family of wolves who protected her. In a statement given to the Associated Press, found here, Defonseca attempted to clarify things by stating "This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving.

Comments

February 1, 2009 at 1:58 pm
(1) kookimebux says:

Hello. And Bye. :)

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