another phoney memoir promoted on oprah

[midnightwriter]

Herman Rosenblat / Angel at the Fence fabrication

Rosenblat says: "I wanted to bring happiness to people. I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world."

This is just one of the articles.


Has anyone read the children's version? I was at Chapters a couple of weeks ago and there it was, on display, so I picked it up and read it. I even thought about getting it for DD, but then thought she was too young (she's 6).

I was surprised to read it was a true story, but I have to admit, the story being supposedly true was more than half of the appeal (there was a note on the back cover). I already imagined myself telling DD (in a few years) about this, and how amazing and strange life is, how beautiful. But DH was right there, and he was immediately more sceptical, and said it didn't sound plausible. "Weren't guards there? Wouldn't other prisoners fight for those apples?" And I shushed him for being too pragmatic.

I feel sad that the story is fabricated. I think I can sort of see how it came to be fabricated, but I'm not sure how and why he maintained the lies for so long. I just feel so sorry for him and so sad. Is it really bringing hope to the world?

[midnightwriter]

and what about oprah?

do they do fact checks?

[midnightwriter]

okay, am i the only one so totally fascinated by this?

has this been discussed before? i did a search, but didn't find anything.

i keep on thinking about this--from many angles, and was hoping to chat with others about it.

[mammastar2]

I've been following it - the New York Times had some interesting coverage, and there's an article in Salon about it today.

I hadn't come across the children's book of it.

I think that when something really awful and incomprehensible involving human actions happens, like the Holocaust, as people are processing it there's an urge to romanticize some aspect of the experience. People were very eager to believe something completely implausible, but uplifting. It's dangerous, though, and risks sentimentalizing the Holocaust.

When you think about it, he was also responding in some way to the "Life is Beautiful" and "Schindler's List" appeal.

He is a Holocaust survivor, I believe, and if the general public has a need to find some kind of an uplifting narrative in the whole thing, I can only imagine what his own need must be.

[midnightwriter]

I can't even start imagining his reality, true. The state of his mind, then and now. It's truly unimaginable. But I'm also struggling with the idea of making the Holocaust "beautiful" with creating lies. Or maybe, on some level, there's no distinction.

I'm also fascinated with the fact that it went on for so long, with so many people involved, and no one checked the facts. There's such a strong drive to believe in something beautiful during all the atrocities.

[mammastar2]

Well, yeah, you can think of it as a societal coping mechanism, or as a societal inability to deal with truly horrible things without going all kitsch and sentimental and figuring there must be an operetta-like love story in there somewhere.

I met a Holocaust survivor once who was an absolutely lovely, completely unbitter person - but he had survived in a concentration camp because his job involved hauling away the bodies of other inmates. We'd all rather people survived through the kindness of strangers.

[Pinoikoi]

Fabricated stories anger me two fold.

1) this particular story deals with the Holocaust. Unfortunately there are far too many Holocaust deniers in the world already, and this will give them fuel for their fire, I think.

2) Authors I personally know were affected by Million little pieces (or whatever that title was called) because when that story came out (also endorsed by Oprah ironically) it started a rash of critics overanalyzing books and calling many TRUE stories- fakes. If an author states that changed names to protect the innocent (like minors for example) that DOESN'T make the story false. But the truth is, one critic that makes that CLAIM can cause a LOT of damage. I think another book proven false is going to make critics and editors even MORE hypervigilant, and authors that really are trying to tell true stories without causing living people more attention than they want, are going to become trod upon even more.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by alaskanteach

Fabricated stories anger me two fold.

1) this particular story deals with the Holocaust. Unfortunately there are far too many Holocaust deniers in the world already, and this will give them fuel for their fire, I think.

2) Authors I personally know were affected by Million little pieces (or whatever that title was called) because when that story came out (also endorsed by Oprah ironically) it started a rash of critics overanalyzing books and calling many TRUE stories- fakes. If an author states that changed names to protect the innocent (like minors for example) that DOESN'T make the story false. But the truth is, one critic that makes that CLAIM can cause a LOT of damage. I think another book proven false is going to make critics and editors even MORE hypervigilant, and authors that really are trying to tell true stories without causing living people more attention than they want, are going to become trod upon even more.

do you give any benefit of doubt to an elderly survivor? or are you just as angry with him as with Frey, for example?

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by midnightwriter

do you give any benefit of doubt to an elderly survivor? or are you just as angry with him as with Frey, for example?

Perhaps I am not understanding your question? I have met several Holocaust survivors that have shared their experiences with me. I attended a Holocaust training for teachers at the museum in DC, and many speak there regularly. I have plenty of "benefit of doubt," obviously or why would I have gone? I do not give credence to liars, though, and the liars are hurting the credibility of those that are telling the REAL stories by association.

So there are elderly survivors that are telling the truth, and there is an elderly survivor that is NOT telling the truth that is hurting the first group.

[Doula Dani]

I think a book's good if it's good. I loved A Million Little Pieces regardless of whether it was true or not.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by alaskanteach

Perhaps I am not understanding your question? I have met several Holocaust survivors that have shared their experiences with me. I attended a Holocaust training for teachers at the museum in DC, and many speak there regularly. I have plenty of "benefit of doubt," obviously or why would I have gone? I do not give credence to liars, though, and the liars are hurting the credibility of those that are telling the REAL stories by association.

So there are elderly survivors that are telling the truth, and there is an elderly survivor that is NOT telling the truth that is hurting the first group.

okay, now i'm not understanding what you are saying.

what i meant: if an elderly survivor felt like he needed, for some reason, to make up a story about holocaust, maybe we shouldn't be so harsh towards him, as opposed to me sitting down and making up a sensational story and then calling it a memoir?

i try to believe that his reasons were not related to financial gain or fame, but truly to making his experience more tolerable.

I wonder wheather he created the story THEN, when he was in the camp, and that imagining a girl with those apples gave him the strength to make it through.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by Doula Dani

I think a book's good if it's good. I loved A Million Little Pieces regardless of whether it was true or not.

I think the criteria for evaluating a book are different, though. if the story is true, we tend to be more forgiving about the writing, because it is only the story that matters.

In a true story, a series of coincidences is a marvelous things--"wow, life is stranger than fiction." in fiction, you can't just string coincidences together to make the bulk of your plot.

There are other things, I'm sure.

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by midnightwriter

what i meant: if an elderly survivor felt like he needed, for some reason, to make up a story about holocaust, maybe we shouldn't be so harsh towards him, as opposed to me sitting down and making up a sensational story and then calling it a memoir?

i try to believe that his reasons were not related to financial gain or fame, but truly to making his experience more tolerable.

I wonder wheather he created the story THEN, when he was in the camp, and that imagining a girl with those apples gave him the strength to make it through.

If imagining a girl with apples helped him make it through, then great, stick it in the memoir as a recurring dream. Pretending it really happened and presenting as such is hurtful to others who may have had just as harsh an experience or life but doesn't embellish the truth. As I said, he is hurting those that are trying to spread the truth.

Anne Frank had dreams in her diary. But they were clearly dreams to anyone that has read her memoir- they were never presented as fact.