By: Lynn Green
This has been a bad couple of weeks for Jewish people. First we discover that Madoff made off with over a billion dollars from his fellow Jewish brethren. Then we discover that Israel is at war with Palestine for the n’th time.
And today I learned the following:
The publication of a holocaust memoir called “Angel at the Fence” has been canceled. It was written by Herman Rosenblat, a holocaust survivor, but his story was too good to be true.
“I saw a little girl on the other side of the barbed wire,” Herman Rosenblat said.
Twelve-year-old Herman was a prisoner, the girl on the other side, he said — his savior.
“She took out an apple out of her jacket and she threw it over the fence,” Herman said. “I grabbed the apple and I ran.”
Years later Rosenblat, now an adult, said he met that same girl on a blind date in New York.
“And that was it,” Herman said. “I knew right then and there we were going to get married.”
Cute story, huh? Oprah certainly thought so. She had this hoaxter on her show twice. It was all a big hoax in an effort to dupe movie producers to buy the story and pay him money—big money. In fact his book has been canceled. $25,000,000 book advance gone. What a JERK!
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Especially after James Frey, I can’t figure out why Oprah wouldn’t have seen the bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt who said their story couldn’t be true way back in 2007. This hoax is a tragedy especially now, when Bernie Madoff’s have given Jewish good name a black eye. I am appalled to hear that the movie maker is still proceeding to make a movie based on this lie.
There are so many other worthwhile projects based on true love stories from the Holocaust like the one about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt – the beautiful young woman who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children’s barracks at Auschwitz – and after the liberation met and married the animator who did the original Disney movie. What a romantic love story.
I also love Dina’s story because of her tremendous courage to paint the mural in the first place, which caused her to have to stand up to Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She was so brave to stand up to Mengele and convince him to make her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber. Some of these paintings Dina did for Mengele survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum, and the story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children’s barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also documented, so Dina’s story is true beyond any doubt. Why wasn’t the Rosenblatt’s story checked out before it was published and picked up to have the movie made??
I would like to see true and wonderful stories like Dina’s be publicized, not these hoax tales that destroy credibility and trust.
Thanks for your input, Suzie. I too would like to see some authentic stories. Appreciate the background on Dina Babbitt.
Good Lord, I would think that Oprah would have treaded a bit more carefully the second time around. She got scorched with James Frey’s fabrication. I cannot understand how these people think they could dupe so many people. Crazy.
Oprah’s producers are the ones responsible for the research but Oprah ultimately takes the blame. Even the publisher believed this story. I’m sure Oprah chewed out some people over this. Many Jews are really upset with this couple.
The publisher probably didn’t want to believe this story wasn’t true because I’ve read many Jews informed them about the lies contained in this story.
As for James Frey’s book, he only embellished some of the events in the book. He didn’t go as far as these people and out right make up stories.
In the book, Rosenblat said he met his future wife at the “fence” of an internment camp and she gave him an apple!!! If anyone has ever read Elie Wiezel’s account of the Holocaust, this would’ve been impossible!!
The Holocaust museum in D.C. is amazing. This group of people has kept their stories culturally truthful, organized, financially sound and in the public eye.
How interesting this story should break now. I read a story yesterday that many Jewish people are upset that people keep referencing the fact that Bernard Madoff is Jewish. I don’t understand why. If he were black, we would constantly hear references in the media to his race and especially if he ripped off fellow blacks, we would hear about the ‘black on black’ theft, etc.
I commented on a related thread that I was waiting for someone at least from the Jewish community to publicly denounce that creep seeing as his actions have affected hundreds of thousands around the WORLD.
Now here comes the ‘Madoff’ of the publishing world, pandering his book of lies to get rich quick at everyone else’s expense.
And you really can’t fault Oprah. Like facts pointed out, it is not Oprah’s job to vet these authors and determine whether they are telling the truth. Really the publishers of these books should be investigating the backgrounds of these authors and whether their stories are true.
A friend of mine who works in publishing was just telling me over the weekend that with so many self-published books, blogs and online articles now that the publishing industry is not what it used to be. Coupled with this lousy economy and massive layoffs at many big publishing houses, the in-house staff left either lack the experience or the time to really do their proper due diligence on these authors and that is why we are seeing so many being exposed as liars.
But with all the MONEY and resources that Oprah has, we can reasonably assume that she would exercise due diligence herself before she would co-sign for these authors on her show!
@onemom: And with her money, staff and limited time, what do you expect her to do? Personally investigate the powerhouse publishers? I don’t think so. We will see more of this.
On other sites, Jews are really raking Rosenblat over the coals.