The Misha Controversy Grows

I suppose by now many of my regular readers are tired of the Misha Defonseca controversy but there has been so much happening in the last few days that it is hard to avoid talking about it. I was contacted by David Mehegan, a reporter at the Boston Globe, to give my perspective on this story yesterday and he is interviewing Jane Daniel today. The controversy around Misha Defonseca continues to grow and, since I have been talking with Jane about this for a couple of years now, the outcome is important for many reasons --- not the least of which is justice for Jane who has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case and whose home and place of business is now under threat.

Today, a link to Jane's blog BESTSELLERtheBook@blogspot.com was posted on Michael Rivero's What Really Happened web site and the hits have been off the chart. There were 243 visitors in the last hour alone and they keep on coming. Jane will be doing a radio interview with him this coming Saturday.

But one of the most interesting stories I have encountered came from LaMeuse, a newspaper in Brussels yesterday. The following is a rough translation of the article sent by a contact in Belgium.

I said so!

It states that two of Monique friends (Alice and Fernande) wrote to
the women's magazine "Elle" when there was an article about Monique.
Their answer was: you are jealous of her success.

In 1997, Fernande called Laffont, the French publisher, to warn them of
the lie, but they did not listen to her. Fernande also warned Michel
Bouffioulx (Belgian journalist), Mireille Dumas (French TV talkshow)
and other media persons that interviewed her. No answer.

A few months ago, when Monique went on air for the Belgian public
station RTBF, Fernande also called and they told her not to play with
"fire" . She was told " you cannot laugh about this woman's misery."
Fernande says she does not understand how Monique managed to make
believe with this story to so many people.

Fernande says "I was 13 in the 1950s and Monique was 4 years older than
I, we were neighbors. She lived on 69a rue Dr. Jacobs in Anderlecht
with her grandfather, a wonderful man who had nothing in common with the
family she describes. We saw each other after 4.pm (after school) to
play cards or in her garden because she had a swing.

She belonged to a very good family and lived in the most beautiful house
on the street. Monique was always 'special'. She wanted to be the
'star' where ever she went. Power, money and glory, that is all that
interested her."

Alice knew Monique a little later, sharing the same teaching studies in
"Berkendael" (well known teaching school in those days) . She remains
puzzled. "She never spoke of anything, neither of her parents nor about
the past. If she had really lived such an adventure, definitely, we
would have known about it. I went to visit her in Boston, 17 years ago.
[circa 1991] She told me that she was preparing 'a surprise.' When I
asked her to tell me some more, because we were very close, she
answered: 'You will see.' In fact she was preparing all this for quite
a while. She always had the dellusions of grandeur, but here, she really
took big risks."

The rest of the article summarizes Jane's court battle, the docs on the
blog & other reports.

There are also several pictures, including Erenst De Wael's house.

And so this story continues to unfold thanks to the power of the internet and bloggers. I hope you find it as fascinating as I do. Thanks for reading.