Publisher Pulls Disputed Holocaust Memoir

(CBS/AP)  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.

CBS' The Early Show reported extensively on the Rosenblats' story in October.

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.

[gatofeo]

This book is especially damnable because it is based on historical fact. Any book, once printed, becomes a reference for centuries -- and any lie is repeated down the line.
The Rosenblats should face criminal charges of fraud. The money they made would make the fraud charges a felony.
And for the record, an estimated 12 million people died in the death camps; half of which were Jews.
My mother fought in the Belgian Resistance and was twice imprisoned in St. Gilles prison by the Gestapo. Her first husband, a Belgian Resistance leader, was captured and endured more than a year in Breendonk torture camp, south of Brussels. Two weeks before D-Day, he was executed.
But HE is never counted among those who were brutalized and murdered by the Germans because he wasn''t in a "death camp."
The Rosenblats are an insult to the memory of everyone who died in the camps, especially if they were themselves interned.
No excuse for their big lie. None.

[misssuzq]

If this book was calssified as Fiction, would people like it? Would people get something positive out of it?
The Frey book that Oprah plugged turned out to not be true, but a lot of people loved it and got something out of it.
So call it fiction and enjoy it for God''s sake!

[actress925]

to juwboy & bapooh:
It was not simply European Jews who persished. Jews from Reich Occupied Africa were sent off to the camps to die. Jews from Morroco, Egypt, Libya, the Middle East. The Germans infected the Middle East with the virulent strain of disease of European Antisemitism via the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

but, Europe has been loath to memorialize the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that died in the camps a very long way from home.

[actress925]

to juwboy & bapooh:
It was not simply European Jews who persished. Jews from Reich Occupied Africa were sent off to the camps to die. Jews from Morroco, Egypt, Libya, the Middle East. The Germans infected the Middle East with the virulent strain of disease of European Antisemitism via the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

but, Europe has been loath to memorialize the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that died in the camps a very long way from home.

[likeitis5050]

I wonder how easily or quickly a story about this kind of love would have been picked up by any publisher...coming as just a fictional story...from an unknown writer. I am surprised this one got access since they usually won''t consider the ''memoir'' unless the author is already a celebrity or someone of substance. Ask the thousands of writers rejected so many times they could paper a small room with the letters how easy it is to get an audience. Then when something proves to be a money-maker they want a signature in blood for as much work as they can get in the shortest amount of time...based solely on the name . Perhaps THEY need to take the lion share of the blame when their ''efforts'' blow back in their faces.

The blame cuts two ways so they need to be gentle when slicing.

This story should have been presented as is...a fictional tale of love finding a way to grow in the worst possible environment. I find it hard to believe this guy never considered approaching the publisher with any thing else but his ''memoir''.....easier to believe he was convinced, by numerous examples, that no one would want the story unless it was presented as a memoir. Doesn''t make the lie any less damaging, but seems to me problems exist in the publishing industry that aren''t being brought to light.

Either way....we are deprived of a great story...real or not.

[Hartru]

Psople who never let the truth get in the way of a good story....
The human race has been afflicted with this malady since....forever.
Some of our most treasured and sacred books are shot through and through with this very thing.

[rushlimpdrug]

just another jew making money the old
fashion jewish way.

More apples!

It is funny that my last post was deleted.

seems we gotta watch what we say about chews.

[spiritwalk]

babooph, why don`t you spend some time determining historical facts instead of wasting ours with your ignorant opinions?

Posted by juwboy
-------------------------------------------------

The historical fact is that pretty much every ethnic group has tried to exterminate every other ethnic group and then tried to clean up the story for public relations.
The Old Testament celebrates Joshua and his "victories" at exterminating the enemies of the chosen people down to even their animals. The first "Thanksgiving" holiday in America was not about some harvest meal, but to celebrate the massacre of an entire Indian tribe in Conecticut.
It is only on the very rare occasion, such as the Romans in the Punic Wars, that a people actually admit they were wrong about exterminating a culture.
Today, as Israel is attacking the Palestinian camps in Gaza it doesn''t immediately give the impression that Joshua''s philosophy has totally renounced.

[annavachel]

I KNEW THIS BOOK WAS A LIE THE MINUTE I READ ABOUT IT. HOW IS IT I KNOW ALL THESE BOOKS ARE FRAUDS BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE DOES AT THE PUBLISHING HOUSE? I BARELY MADE IT OUT OF HS! THIS IS THE SECOND OR THIRD HOLOCAUST BOOK IN A YEAR TO BE A LIE AND YET THEY CAN''T CRANK ''EM OUT FAST ENOUGH. IT AMAZES ME HOW STUPID PEOPLE ARE. INCLUDING MS. OPRAH.

[spiritwalk]

How is it that Oprah is constantly getting caught up promoting authors whose "autobiographies" turn out not to be true? When it is found out that the person is not what they claimed to be she back peddles and says that it doesn''''t matter if they were not telling the truth.

Are we going to see Oprah have to go through the same song and dance with Obama?