Misha Defonseca (born Monique de Wael) is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

-born impostor and the author of a fraudulent

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 titled '' Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years'', first published in 1997 and at that time professed to be a true

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

. It became an instant success in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and was translated into 18 languages. The French version of the book was a derivative work based on the original with the title ''Survivre avec les loups'' (''Surviving with Wolves'') that was published in 1997 by the

Éditions Robert Laffont Éditions Robert Laffont is a book publishing company in France founded in 1941 by Robert Laffont. Its publications are distributed in almost all francophone countries, but mainly in France, Canada and in Belgium. It is considered one of the most ...

; this second version was adapted into the French film of the same name. On 29 February 2008, the author as well as her lawyers admitted that the bestselling book was fraudulent, despite its having been presented as autobiographical. In 2014 a US court ordered Defonseca to repay her US publisher Mt. Ivy Press $22 million that she had been awarded in an earlier legal suit against the publisher.

Biography

Defonseca was born Monique de Wael, the daughter of Catholic parents who were arrested, deported, and murdered by the Nazis for being resistance members. After her parents' arrest, Monique was sent to live with her grandparents, then her uncle. In the local community, she was known as the "daughter of the traitor," as her father, Robert de Wael, was accused of disclosing the names of resistance members to the Nazis during his imprisonment. After being liberated, her father's name was erased from the stone plaque in honour of the local Nazi-victim employees on the walls of the Schaerbeek municipality. Defonseca and her husband, Maurice, moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

from

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

in 1988 and bought a house in

Millis, Massachusetts Millis is a town in Norfolk County in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It had a population of 8,460 at the time of the 2020 census. The town is approximately southwest of downtown Boston and is bordered by Norfolk, Sherborn, Holliston, Medf ...

. He was unemployed by the mid-1990s. Defonseca began to fantasize a vivid story about her childhood, including having wandered across Europe at the age of six after her parents were deported in 1941, being sheltered by friendly packs of

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

, killing a German soldier in self-defence, sneaking into and out of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

, and finding her way home at the end of the war. Jane Daniel, a local book publisher, convinced Defonseca to write a memoir about her alleged past after she heard the writer tell the story in a Massachusetts synagogue. Daniel published ''Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years'' in 1997 through her "one woman operation", Mt. Ivy Press. Prior to the uncovering of the hoax, the book had spawned a multimillion-dollar legal battle between Defonseca and the book's

ghostwriter A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often ...

, Vera Lee, against Jane Daniel and her publishing company, Mt. Ivy Press. Daniel and Defonseca fell out over profits received from the best-selling book, which led to a lawsuit. In 2005, a Boston court ordered Daniel to pay Defonseca and Lee $22.5 million. Defonseca's lawyers said Daniel had not paid the court-ordered sum. Following her admission, a court in 2014 ordered Defonseca to repay the full amount. Despite the book's popularity, many critics pointed to passages that were logically or historically implausible. The first person who publicly doubted the authenticity of the story was

Henryk M. Broder Henryk Marcin Broder (born 20 August 1946, self-designation Henryk Modest Broder) is a Polish-born German journalist, author, and TV personality. Broder is known for polemics, columns, and comments in written and audiovisual media. Starting as ...

, who wrote an article about Defonseca in 1996 for the German news magazine '' Der Spiegel''. In late February 2008, a baptismal certificate from a Brussels church for a Monique De Wael and a register from an elementary school near the De Waels' home that shows Monique enrolled there in September 1943 – two years after Misha claimed to have left Brussels – were posted by Jane Daniel on her blog. Belgian national newspaper ''Le Soir'' soon reported these findings. Finally the leading historian of the

Shoah 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; ar ...

in Belgium, Maxime Steinberg, pointed out the story's historical anomalies and errors. On 29 February 2008, Defonseca admitted to ''

Le Soir ''Le Soir'' (, "The Evening") is a French-language Belgian daily newspaper. Founded in 1887 by Emile Rossel, it was intended as a politically independent source of news. It is one of the most popular Francophone newspapers in Belgium, competing ...

'' that she had fabricated the tale, after she had been presented with what the paper described as "irrefutable" evidence that her story was false. "The book is a story, it's my story", said the writer in a statement issued under her real name. "It's not the true reality, but it is my reality. There are times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world." Defonseca told ''Le Soir'' that she had always wanted to forget her real name because she had been called "the traitor's daughter."

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 ...

genealogist 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 kins ...

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 M. Fitzpatrick Colleen M. Fitzpatrick (born April 25, 1955) is an American forensic scientist, genealogist and entrepreneur. She helped identify remains found in the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422, that crashed in Alaska in 1948, and co-founded the DNA ...

led the team which was instrumental in uncovering the hoax.Caleb Daniloff
Untrue Stories, a genealogist reveals the painful truth about three Holocaust memoirs: they're fiction
''Bostonia'' (Alumni Magazine of Boston University) Misha Defonseca and her memoir are the subject of the documentary film ''

Misha and the Wolves ''Misha and the Wolves'' is a 2021 documentary film written and directed by Sam Hobkinson. The film examines the fraudulent 1997 Holocaust memoir of Misha Defonseca. The film premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2021. On A ...

'', released on Netflix in 2021. The documentary reveals that Defonseca, prior to the controversy, was slated to appear on ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...

'' as part of

Oprah's Book Club Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion club segment of the American talk show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new book, usually a novel, for viewers ...

. A segment was even filmed for the broadcast with Defonseca interacting with a live wolf, but afterwards Defonseca canceled the appearance.

References

External links

Misha Defonseca on her true life
{{DEFAULTSORT:Defonseca, Misha 1937 births Living people People from Etterbeek Belgian fraudsters Belgian female criminals Literary forgeries Belgian writers in French 20th-century Belgian women writers 20th-century Belgian novelists 20th-century Belgian criminals People from Millis, Massachusetts Impostors

Biography

See also

References

External links