''Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived'', written by
Herman Rosenblat
Herman A. Rosenblat ( 1929 – February 5, 2015) was a Polish-born American author, known for writing a fictitious Holocaust memoir titled ''Angel at the Fence'',Rosenblat, Herman (2009) ''Angel at the Fence'' Berkley Hardcover, purporting t ...
, was a fictitious
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
memoir purporting to tell the true story of the author's reunion with, and marriage to, a girl who had passed him food through the barbed-wire fence when he was imprisoned at the
Schlieben subcamp of the
Buchenwald concentration camp in World War II. The book was scheduled for publication by Berkley Books in February 2009, but its publication was canceled on December 27, 2008, when it was discovered that the book's central events were untrue.
Prior to being exposed as a fabrication, the film rights to the book were purchased for $25 million by producer Harris Salomon of Atlantic Overseas Pictures. Other fans of the story included
Oprah Winfrey, who described it as the single greatest love story she had heard in 22 years of doing her show.
The story
Fabricated by Rosenblat, the story states that, beginning in the winter of 1944, a nine-year-old Jewish girl, posing as a Christian from a local farm, met Rosenblat at the electrified perimeter fence of the Schlieben concentration camp and tossed him an apple over the fence. She continued passing him food for seven months until he was transferred to another camp. According to Rosenblat, they met in 1957 on a
blind date
A blind date is a social engagement between two people who have not met, usually arranged by a mutual acquaintance.
Structure
A blind date is arranged for by a mutual acquaintance of both participants. The two people who take part in the blind ...
at
Coney Island, New York
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the ...
, and, while relating their personal histories, discovered their shared past. Shortly afterwards, they married.
Authenticity questioned
Several Holocaust scholars, including
Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books '' Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' (2011), and ...
, raised questions about “the central premise of his narrative — that a girl met him at the fence and that very girl became his wife,” and suggested that that premise "is, at the very least, an embellishment, and at worst, a wholesale fabrication."
Friends and family members also raised questions about the truth of statements in the book.
Professor
Kenneth Waltzer
Kenneth Alan "Kenny" Waltzer (born 1942) is an American historian and educator, formerly director of the Jewish Studies program at Michigan State University (MSU). His research on the Buchenwald concentration camp has focused on the rescue of ch ...
, director of the Jewish Studies program at
Michigan State University, stated that maps of Schlieben indicate that neither prisoners nor civilians could have approached the perimeter fence because one could only obtain access immediately next to the SS barracks.
Waltzer also determined that Rosenblat's wife, as well as her family, were hidden as Christians at a farm near
Breslau, 210 miles away from Schlieben. A number of researchers, including
forensic
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...
genealogists
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
Sharon Sergeant
Sharon Sergeant (born 1947) is an American forensic genealogist who specializes in researching and tracing international fraud cases, property settlements, and provenance of artifact collections. She also conducts biographical research for histor ...
and
Colleen Fitzpatrick, as well as several Holocaust survivors, worked with Waltzer in uncovering the deception and bringing it to the attention of reporters.
Rosenblat and the publisher initially maintained that the story was truthful. Berkley Books subsequently stated that it was "canceling publication of ''Angel at the Fence'' after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst," and "will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work." Rosenblat, who was in fact imprisoned in Schlieben, has acknowledged that the story of meeting his wife there was invented.
[Conan, Neal (December 29, 2008)]
Holocaust Memoir Exposed As Fake.
''Talk of the Nation
''Talk of the Nation'' (''TOTN'')
is an American talk radio program based in Washington D.C., produced by National Public Radio ( NPR) that was broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. It focused on current events and controversial i ...
'', National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
Related works
A children's version of the story, entitled ''Angel Girl'' (), written by
Laurie Friedman and illustrated by Ofra Amit, was published in September 2008 by
Carolrhoda Books of
Lerner Publishing Group
Lerner Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota since its founding in 1959, is one of the largest independently owned children's book publishers in the United States. With more than 5,000 titles in print, Lerner Publi ...
.
In August 2009, York House Press published a paperback by Penelope Holt titled ''The Apple: Based on the Herman Rosenblat Holocaust Love Story'' ().
In June 2010, Salomon and Atlantic Overseas Pictures signed a co-production agreement with Castel Film Studios, the largest film studio in Central and Eastern Europe and the studio for ''
Cold Mountain'' and ''
Borat
''Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' ( Kazakh / Russian: ''Борат'') (also stylized as ''BORДT'', or simply ''Borat'') is a 2006 mockumentary black comedy film directed by Larry Charle ...
'', to produce a feature film on the Herman Rosenblat affair, in spite of the cancellation of the story's publication.
The $25 million
film adaptation of the book, titled ''Flower of the Fence'', was to be based on an original screenplay by Ivo Marloh, and was to be shot in 2011. Salomon said the film would be a "loose and fictionalised adaptation" unaffected by issues with the memoir's authenticity.
Herman Rosenblat's Holocaust memoir of love is exposed as a hoax
from ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' The film, however, was never made.
See also
* Misha Defonseca ('' Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years'', 1997)
* Martin Grey Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austra ...
(''Au nom de tous les miens'')
* Binjamin Wilkomirski (''Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood'', 1995)
* Rosemarie Pence
Rosemarie Pence (formerly Hannah Pence; born 1938) is a German-American woman who posed as a child Holocaust survivor from the Dachau Concentration Camp. Pence became the subject of a fake biography titled '' Hannah: From Dachau to the Olympics ...
('' Hannah: From Dachau to the Olympics and Beyond'', 2005)
* Enric Marco
Enric Marco (12 April 1921 – 21 May 2022) was a Catalonian impostor who claimed to have been a prisoner in Nazi German concentration camps Mauthausen and Flossenbürg in World War II. He was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi by the Catalan governm ...
(''Memorias del infierno'', 1978)
* Donald J. Watt
Donald Joseph Watt (10 August 1918 – 28 May 2000) was an Australian Army soldier and the author of a literary hoax, a fictitious Holocaust memoir entitled ''Stoker: The Story of an Australian Soldier who Survived Auschwitz-Birkenau'', published i ...
(''Stoker'', 1995)
* Denis Avey
Denis Avey (11 January 1919 – 16 July 2015) was a British veteran of the Second World War who was held as a prisoner of war at E715, a subcamp of Auschwitz. While there he saved the life of a Jewish prisoner, Ernst Lobethal, by smuggling ciga ...
('' The Man who Broke into Auschwitz'', 2011)
References
{{Reflist, 2
External links
Love Lessons from Amazing Couples
via Oprah.com
Untrue Stories, article & video on how Holocaust memoir hoaxes are busted
American romance novels
Books about the Holocaust
Cancelled books
Holocaust-related hoaxes
Literary forgeries
Polish romance novels
Written fiction presented as fact