After the public humiliation she suffered for buying into James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces (of lies) hook, line and sinker, Oprah Winfrey must be wondering about her literary Midas touch now that she’s been ensnared in yet another sensational literary hoax.
This time, the writer who duped her with a daring love story masquerading as his life story is Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat. In a nutshell, as reported in the New York Times:
Rosenblat and his wife [told Oprah] that he was a prisoner at a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Nazi Germany and she was 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.
No doubt some of you will recall that I was amongst the few who dared to criticize Oprah for initially rushing to defend Frey, and her reputation, when his purported life story was exposed as pure fiction:
Given all of her talk about embracing one’s true self and living a blissful life of open confessions, one might’ve expected Oprah to feel betrayed, perhaps even humiliated, by this abuse of her reputation and trust. Instead, she blessed Frey’s fatuous plea about taking creative license with the truth and ignored the emotional toil his lies will undoubtedly have on her fans whose lives were “impacted” by his book.
[Oprah’s book club scandal, The iPINIONS Journal, January 13, 2006]
Therefore, it might come as a surprise to learn that I am now amongst the few who are defending her. Because, frankly, I can see how anyone would be loath to question the personal story of a bona fide Holocaust survivor like Rosenblat. Moreover, I can see how – based solely on what little I’ve read – Oprah felt moved to describe it as:
The single greatest love story … we’ve ever told on the air.
Except that it is a lie. Though, admittedly, just a little white lie compared to the big lie that gave rise to another Holocaust hoax, the Hitler Diaries – in terms of literary and historical importance.
Specifically, Holocaust scholars note, amongst other things, 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.
But by the time their misgivings were made public last week, Oprah had already given Rosenblat’s story her golden seal of approval, which enabled him to score a book (and a movie) deal as if by royal decree.
Nevertheless, clearly worried about getting “Freyed” again, the publishing world reacted viscerally, which torpedoed Rosenblat’s chance of peddling his lies into a bestseller too:
It is with heavy heart that I share what I learned today from my client, Herman Rosenblat, about his book, ‘Angel at the Fence.’ Herman revealed to me that part of his memoir was not true. He’d invented the crux of this amazing love story….
(Rosenblat’s agent, Andrea Hurst on Sunday)
Accordingly, the publisher, Penguin Books, voided his contract, canceled the scheduled February 2009 publication of his book (entitled Angel at the Fence), and demanded the return of all advances paid to him and his agent.
Meanwhile, reports about the movie coming soon to a theater near you are almost as misleading as Rosenblat’s story. After all, have you seen the movie version of Frey’s A Million Little Pieces yet…?
As for Oprah, she’s no doubt thankful to be on hiatus, planning her week of shows from DC to mark Barack Obama’s historic inauguration. But when she returns, I urge her not to waste any time making apologies for Rosenblat the way she did, initially, for Frey when his “life story” was exposed as a book of lies. She has done nothing wrong….
Yet, given these stunning developments, it seems a gross oversight that she has not instructed one of her minions at HARPO to update the segment on her website which features Oprah extolling Rosenblat’s romantic lies as a one of life’s “love lessons“.
NOTE: Herman’s wife, Roma, seems to have been a very willing accomplice in this fraudulent enterprise. Therefore, please direct a fair share of your indignation at her….
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Defending Frey, dissing Oprah…
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jessi says
Herman Rosenblat and his wife.
shame shame shame shame shame shame
shame shame shame shame shame shame
shame shame shame shame shame shame
for what you did.
Jane says
What a shame that the Rosenblats lied about their story. I wish Oprah would publicize only checked-out true stories from now on forward.
I read about a genuine Holocaust love story in the NY Times recently and it’s better than the Rosenblats anyway. Stan Lee and Neal Adams the famous comic book artists were publicizing the story of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt. I checked and I’m surprised there’s no book on this yet. It’s a great story! It also appears to be all true, thankfully.
Dina Gottliebova Babbitt who was a 19 year old art student at Auschwitz. There she painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the wall of the children’s barracks to cheer them up. Dina’s art became her salvation and helped her find true love!
Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death, found out about the mural Dina painted and called for her. She thought she was going to be gassed, but she bravely stood up to Mengele and he decided to make her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.
After the war, Dina interviewed for a job as an animator based on the art she did in Auschwitz and the person interviewing her turned out to be the man who created Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs for the movie. They fell in love and got married. Show White saved Dina’s life twice! I love this story!