More Made-Up Memoirs

Oh, YAY. It's another literary liar. I LOVE these guys.

No, really, I do. I am endlessly fascinated with fakers, from Janet Cooke to James Frey to (oh my god my FAVORITE) Margaret Seltzer. Or perhaps I just kind of admire the incredible BALLS it requires to be all, "Yeah, I was an eight-year-old heroin addict who was saved from the Holocaust by a gang of East L.A. wolves who threw apples at me, and stuff. What part of that don't you believe?"

The latest hoax-y goodness is Angel at the Fence. It's another Holocaust memoir, in the grand tradition of Mischa Defonseca and Binjamin Wilkomirski , and is another Oprah-endorsed story, like James Frey.

(Yeah. That's the cover over there. With the white dove on the barbed wire. GAK. UGH.)

At least the guy -- Herman Rosenblat -- really DID survive the Holocaust and spend time at a concentration camp. The rest of the story, unfortunately, is a load of piping hot bullshit. He claims that he survived only with the help of a young Jewish girl (dressed like a Christian farm girl) who tossed him apples and bread over the camp's barbed-wire fence. 12 years later, he was set up on a blind date in New York and...OMFG! IT'S APPLE GIRL!

The couple have been married for 50 years now and have told their story publically many times -- twice on Oprah, who dubbed it "the single greatest love story" she's ever heard. It appeared in magazines, a Chicken Soup for the Soul book and a children's book. Angel at the Fence was going to be, I suppose, a full expanded version of the story and other parts of Herman's life and was scheduled to come out in February.

But then these pesky little things like "facts" and "truth" and (like good old Peggy Seltzer) "family members who aren't particularly down with the whole 'lying' thing" came and ruined the whole story.

Among the problems: the fence. It was, like, fiercely guarded. And stuff.

In his research of maps drawn by ex-prisoners, Dr. Waltzer learned that the section of Schlieben where Mr. Rosenblat was housed had fences facing other sections of the camp and only one fence — on the south — facing the outside world. That fence was adjacent to the camp’s SS barracks and the SS men there would have been able to spot a boy regularly speaking to a girl on the other side of the fence, Dr. Waltzer said. Moreover, the fence was electrified and civilians outside the camp were forbidden to walk along the road that bordered the fence.

Also, his wife would have been lugging those apples a really long way.

Dr. Waltzer also learned from online documentation that Ms. Radzicki, her parents and two sisters were hidden as Christians at a farm not outside Schlieben but 210 miles away near Breslau.

After defending the story as true for months ("No, like...I was at a DIFFERENT fence."), Rosenblat now admits that it's fake, but he only wrote it because his dead mother told him to in a dream and he wanted to make people happy and oh my God, he's really trying very hard to make my head explode with this crap:

I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world. In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream.

His son is relieved, since he's known about the lie for years and couldn't seem to get dear old dad to shut up about it. Herman's brother was so angry about it the two were no longer on speaking terms at the time of his death two years ago. Yeah, that's bringing a lot of good to the world. At the expense of your family. Also, dude. You SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST. Couldn't you have, you know...just written about THAT?

The book has been thoroughly scapped and will not be published, although a film version is still technically in the works and the producer claims it will be marketed as fiction and the earnings will be donated to charities.