...and why it is hard to believe.

Author, publisher defend disputed Holocaust memoir

NEW YORK

12/26/2008 10:34:08 AM

By HILLEL ITALIE

The author and publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir defended the book's story of love between two survivors, but also called it a work of memory and not of scholarship.

"This is my personal story as I remember it," Herman Rosenblat, 79, said in a statement issued Thursday through Berkley Books, which will release his "Angel at the Fence" in February.

Berkley added its own comments, noting that a leading Holocaust expert, Michael Berenbaum, had found the story credible, but also saying that "any memoir based on the memories of a survivor is verifiable only by him or her alone."

Rosenblat's book is based on his well-publicized story _ embraced by Oprah Winfrey among others _ of how he met his future wife, Roma Radzicki, on opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence at a Nazi concentration camp. Scholars have questioned whether such an encounter could have happened.

"The events that are its background are part of history; the book, however, reflects my memories of how the events affected my life. I was a young child at the time my family was caught up in the Holocaust, and I saw things through a young child's eyes. But I know and remember what I saw," Rosenblat said in his statement.

"What I offer in this memoir are the images, sounds, smells and feelings that have stayed in my mind for some seven decades."

As the Rosenblats have recounted on numerous occasions over the past decade, he was a teenager in a concentration camp in Nazi-controlled Germany and she was slightly younger, her family pretending to be Christian and living nearby.

They met at the camp's fence, where for months she would sneak him apples and bread. Rosenblat was eventually transferred to another camp and lost track of his friend until years after the war, when both were living in New York and met on a blind date. Upon talking about their lives, they recognized each other and were soon married, in 1958.

The couple live in the Miami area in Florida.

Since going public with their story in the 1990s, the Rosenblats have been celebrated by Winfrey, among others, and have been the subject of a children's book, Laurie Friedman's "Angel Girl." A feature film is scheduled to begin production next year.

But scholars, some of whom were quoted in a recent story by The New Republic, have been highly skeptical, saying the layout of the camp _ Schlieben, a sub-camp of Buchenwald _ made it virtually impossible that Rosenblat could have approached the fence without being spotted. According to maps of Schlieben, the area where he and Roma might have met was located next to SS barracks.

"Some serious historians as well as other historical sleuths have done some pretty serious research on this story," Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, wrote on her blog on Dec. 15.

No one questions that Rosenblat was a prisoner, but Lipstadt worries that Holocaust deniers would be encouraged should his meetings with Rosa be disproved.

"There are also survivors who are very upset about this story," she wrote. "They just don't believe it."

But oprah says it's true and we know she is always right about the books she shills for, yeah right.

JonR

I seem to remember the last book that got her in trouble was also a "memoir".

Sucks to be Oprah.

Sounds plausible.I'm betting most non-believers are denying more than just how this couple met.

Ron

Ron - having never been in a concentration camp, how can you say, with any conviction, that this story sounds plausible?

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass one way or the other. But survivors who were THERE are doubting the guy.

*shrug*

Nothing like discussing light subject far like Concentration Camps during the holiday season.

Jingle jingle!

far = fare

My parents visited one of the former concentration camps while on vacation years ago. A man they had never met before asked if they were American. My mother said yes. He hugged them and started crying, thanking Americans for saving him. As it turns out, he had been a prisoner in the same camp when American forces showed up to liberate them.

^MACS

Here is what I said............It is worthy of belief.I really don't think the people calling BS on this were THERE.I believe it was people who looked at photos and diagrams of the camp.

Also "Michael Berenbaum, had found the story credible, but also saying that "any memoir based on the memories of a survivor is verifiable only by him or her alone."I'm not calling any holocaust survivor a liar!!!!!!!!!

plau·si·ble

Pronunciation: \?plo?-z?-b?l\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin plausibilis worthy of applause, from plausus, past participle of plaudere

Date: 1565

1 : superficially fair, reasonable, or valuable but often specious a plausible pretext

2 : superficially pleasing or persuasive a swindler… , then a quack, then a smooth, plausible gentleman — R. W. Emerson

3 : appearing worthy of belief the argument was both powerful and plausible

Ron

BTW Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year.

Ron

I'll go with #2...2 : superficially pleasing or persuasive a swindler… , then a quack, then a smooth, plausible gentleman — R. W. Emerson

JonR

#5

Never forget

....................FALSE!!!!.......................

Publication of disputed Holocaust memoir canceled

NEW YORK

12/27/2008 6:34:40 PM

By HILLEL ITALIE

The publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir has canceled the book, adding the name Herman Rosenblat to an increasingly long line of literary fakers and bringing down with a crash his story _ embraced by Oprah Winfrey among others _ of meeting his future wife at a Nazi concentration camp.

Rosenblat's "Angel at the Fence" had been scheduled to come out in February, but Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), withdrew the memoir Saturday following allegations by scholars, friends and family members that his tale was untrue.

"Berkley Books is canceling publication of Angel at the Fence after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst," the publisher said in a statement. "Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work."

A couple of days earlier, Berkley had offered a qualified defense of the book, saying it was a work of memory, a story whose truth was known only to the author.

Rosenblat, 79, a resident of the Miami area, was virtually unknown to the general public until the 1990s when he began speaking of how he came to know his wife, Roma Radzicky. According to Rosenblat and his wife, he was a prisoner at a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Nazi Germany and she a young Jewish girl whose family was pretending to be Christian and lived nearby.

For months, they would meet on opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence, where she would sneak him apples and bread. Rosenblat was then transferred to another camp and the two lost touch, until the 1950s, when they were reunited by accident _ on a blind date _ in New York. They soon married and earlier this year celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

The Rosenblats were interviewed twice over the years by Winfrey, who has called their romance "the single greatest love story ... we've ever told on the air." They have inspired a children's book and a feature film adaptation is scheduled to begin next year.

Unlike such fake Holocaust memoirists as Misha Defonseca ("Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years") and Benjamin Wilkomirski ("Fragments"), Rosenblat is indeed a survivor and records prove that he was at the Buchenwald camp.

But scholars doubted his story, noting that the layout of the sub-camp made such an encounter at the fence virtually unthinkable (They would have met right by an SS barracks). A recent article in The New Republic quoted friends and family members who were outraged by Rosenblat, so much so that one of his brothers stopped speaking to him.

The cancellation is sure to outrage survivors and scholars, who have worried that Rosenblat would encourage Holocaust deniers, and likely revive the debate over why publishers don't fact check books. Even after such fabrications as James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces," another Winfrey favorite, publishers have said that with more than 100,000 books coming out each year, fact-checking is too time-consuming and too expensive.

Penguin has already had to break ties with two authors this year.

In March, the publisher pulled Margaret B. Jones' "Love and Consequences" after the author acknowledged she had invented her story of befriending gang members in South-Central Los Angeles. One month later, Penguin parted with romance writer Cassie Edwards over allegations that she had lifted numerous passages from other sources.

JonR

Yeaup. Toldja.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2008-12-28_D95C59C80&show_article=1&cat=breaking