MISHA ADMITS IS WAS A HOAX!!!

According to Le Soir, the largest newspaper in Belgium, Misha Defonseca just admitted that her story was a hoax: Article in French!

Too Many Questions
One of the most interesting things to me about the Misha Defonseca controversy that has occupied most of my blogging for the past week is the incredible role the internet and blogging has played in this story. The original book, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust, was published in 1997 by Mt Ivy Press. At that time the internet was nowhere near as commonly used as it is now and who could have known it would be. Then the lawsuit was brought by Misha against Mount Ivy and for 10 years Jane Daniel and her lawyers were so embroiled in the legal firestorm that ensued that there was little time or space to gain perspective on the story. Finally, in the summer of 2007, with her last efforts to save herself from financial devastation destroyed, Jane stepped back and began to collect what little remained for her. Her best hope was that the whole miserable debacle would at least provide her with material for a good book. So she began writing.

I have been a blogger for nearly three years now. Blogging didn't exist in 1997. The more Jane and I talked about her plans for her book the more starting it as a blog made sense. She could perhaps get some people interested in her ordeal and also provide useful information to the thousands of independent publishers that the latest trend in digital printing has spawned. She hoped that along the way some new information about her case would come to light that might help her. In August 2007 she started BESTSELLERtheBook.blogspot.com.

For several months she posted chapter after chapter. The idea of the veracity of Misha's story was something she and I discussed, especially after she came across the bank cards in the trial documents. From the time the book was published many people had questioned the veracity of the story but Jane had whole-heartedly believed it when Misha first told it to her and, when the book was about to be made public, she worried about people doubting it and set about finding credible authorities who would endorse it. However, when she thought about the information on the bank cards --- Misha recorded her birth date as being 3 years later than she claimed in the book and that her mother's maiden name was Donvil, not a Jewish name --- she began to give serious thought that there were some disturbing discrepancies.

In December Jane was contacted by Sharon, a genealogist who had discovered her blog. Sharon had read with rapt fascination and she had a few ideas. Based on her experience as a professional genealogist she was seeing discrepancies that were far more interesting. It was at this time, thanks to Sharon's contacts in Europe, that she and Jane discovered that the book had been translated into 17 languages abroad and that a movie was about to be released --- something Jane knew nothing about. Why, she asked, would Misha work to ruin her own book in America (read Jane's blog for details on this) then turn around and publish it in Europe?

Sharon acquired a copy of the French book and began reading it and recording notable differences between the information in the original American book and the French book. Two things stood out. One, all the photos that appeared in the American book had been removed from the French book and, two, Misha's birth name had been changed from Monique DeWael in the American book to Monique Valle in the French book. What was the meaning of that?

Thus the sleuthing began. And it quickly yielded results --- the Baptismal certificate posted below was discovered followed by the school record. Why had no one found them before? The answer is simple --- nobody was investigating the childhood of Monique DeWael. They were investigating the childhood of Monique Valle and finding nothing. Misha had signed both her bank cards and the deed to her house as Monique DeWael so it was logical to assume that was her correct name. Could it be possible that the name Monique Valle, in the European book was a deliberate attempt to mislead?

As evidenced by the posts on this blog and on BESTSELLER! once the name DeWael was used by searchers there was a rapid progression of information and ideas. Bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean began sharing information and the information they shared became more and more damning. Monique Valle might be a mystery girl without a past but Monique DeWael was not.

The story is still unfolding but one huge question has been plaguing those of us closely involved in this story: Is it possible that Misha realized she made a huge mistake by using her real name in the American book --- a mistake that could reveal her as a fraud? Is that the reason she was so difficult about promoting her own book and, ultimately killed it with a horrific lawsuit, then took the book to Europe, changed her name, removed her photos, and published a book that soon became a great success abroad, was translated into 17 languages, made into an Italian operetta and eventually a French film? In the era before the internet would we ever have known about this discrepancy? We live in the information age but information isn't much use unless it is shared and accurate. Is it possible that the internet and information shared on blogs revealed information that was not intended to be discovered?

In Costa- Gavras's 1989 movie The Music Box, one of the lawyers warns another about going in to court against a Holocaust survivor saying, ''You don't have a prayer. Holocaust survivors are this century's secular saints.'' In 1997 when Jane Daniel was forced into court by Misha Defonseca's accusations against her Daniel didn't stand a chance regardless of what she had or hadn't done. Misha was known as a Holocaust survivor --- that was all anyone needed to know. Now, in 2008, as the evidence mounts that Defonseca is neither a Holocaust survivor nor a Jew a new devastation is happening. Holocaust-deniers and neo-Nazis are using her hoax to support their cause. More destruction. The pain this woman has caused seems to be endless. But I still believe that the truth will put some of the pain to rights --- for my friend Jane and for all the true Holocaust survivors who have to endure the derision resulting from lies.

Thanks for reading.

Addendum
After I posted this blog I received the following information from Sharon Sergeant of Ancestral Manor, the genealogist I mentioned in the blog. This provides additional information on how she went about her investigation. I found it so interesting I wanted to share it here:

I actually got 5 versions of the book to compare - US, French, UK, 
Italian and Japanese. The discrepancies over time were quite difficult 
to track, so we first focussed on a picture time line to give our 
research a rudder in developing theories to test in the records. The 
photos were removed from the French version. Like the name change from 
De Wael to Valle, the removal of the photos was a red flag.

I worked with two expert photo analysts independently on the photo
time line:
Colleen Fitzpatrick www.forensicgenealogy.info
Maureen Taylor www.photodetective.com

1. The US records had given us some clues that were not in the various
book versions or the interviews, but we still had to expedite sorting
out likely vs unlikely in the conflicting statements.

2. Visual Time Line
I augmented the 1997 US publication photos with others
found on the internet.

Colleen and Maureen were both able to confirm the likelihood of the 
theories I had formulated to test in the records:
"Misha" is likely to have been born in 1937, rather than 1934.
"Misha" may be related by blood to the persons she identifies as Marthe
and Ernest DeWael - instead of the "foster" grandparents identity she 
gives them.

This visual time line and basic hypotheses are important as we wind our
way through various threads in the records methodology.

3. Street and Phone directory searches
The Belgian libraries revealed a skeleton summary of Valle, De Wael,
Donvil/Donville, and Levy names and addresses in greater Brussels -
particularly Schaerbeek and Anderlect communes from 1911-1977.


3. Negative Proofs
The purported Jewish parents, German Jew Reuven and Russian Jew Gerusha, 
were not found in the Belgian databases for Jewish deportees.

Other researcher commentaries on the realities of this era include the
unlikelihood of the "Misha" claim that Reuven could pass for Aryan and
worked at the "town hall," and thus manufacture new identity papers for
"Misha." Identity papers were manufactured, but not as depicted. These
types of revelations become more important when we follow the
paper trail.


4. Baptismal and School Records
The child that matches the US public records for "Misha" was found in
the 1937 baptismal registers of St Gertrude Parish of Etterbeek, Belgium
  - shutting off the surname search for Valle (as changed in the 1997 
French publication), even though "Misha" said the French version in her
native language was the "real" story.

Ernest De Wael is named as her godfather, and Josephine Dillemans is her
godmother on the baptismal record. We learned that grandparents were 
often godparents in the tradition of the times - adding fuel to the idea 
that Ernest and Marthe De Wael were her real paternal grandparents, and 
that her maternal grandmother was Josephine Dillemans.

Following the Schaerbeek address given on the baptismal certificate, we
located that neighborhood elementary school, and found Monique De Wael
entering first grade in 1943, daughter of Robert De Wael, a Schaerbeek
town employee.

There we also found Marguerite Levy, sister of Monique De Wael's first
husband Morris Levy, living in the same neighborhood and starting first
grade with her.