Misha Defonseca - Fake-memoir-writer-extraordinarie.

Misha Defonseca’s “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years” was an international bestseller, appearing in 18 languages, a feature film in France, and amazing readers worldwide. Now, it’s been revealed that it’s a hoax, not autobiographical, and it’s too late to do anything about it! For over half a century the lie was hidden, but why was it revealed now?

In her book, Misha claimed to have traveled 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves, while she was searching for her parents. I’m not sure why that claim did not raise questions with readers, but before now it was assumed that she was telling what she thought was the truth. Defonseca wrote that Nazis seized her parents, and that she ended up wandering alone for 4 years in European forests and villages. Eventually finding herself trapped in a Warsaw ghetto, she killed a Nazi soldier before being adopted by a pack of wolves.

Sounds a little farfetched? Well, people believed it! She’s not even Jewish actually…

Defonseca has apologized for writing what she called “fantasy,” but stated that “This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving. I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost.” Her parents really were arrested when she was 4, but instead of a pack of wild wolves her grandfather and uncle adopted and took care of her. They considered her a “daughter of a traitor” and Misha might have started forming her own fantasy narrative to escape her sad reality.

The Belgian paper “Le Soir” was the first to discover material that called Misha’s story into question, and when presented with the information by Nathalie Uyttendaele she eventually told the truth. Pressure mounted as other historians chimed in, pointing out that Defonseca’s family can’t be found in archives as Jewish, and other issues in the story (such as being adopted by a pack of wild wolves and trekking across Europe) don’t seem to match reality. Hmm… really?

It’s really too late to change much. The French movie will have to remove “Based on a True Story” and her book will probably be moved to the fiction section. But after half-a-century the money she made and the lie she perpetrated for decades can’t be taken back. Plus, she’s old now. She could go on Oprah and fall into “A Million Little Pieces“. James Frey was punished harshly in the media, financially, and career-wise for his fake memoir, but that was caught quickly. For Misha, all she can feel is shame after years of essentially lying.

[Link]

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