Dec 29, 2008

Books - Publication of disputed Holocaust memoir axed

Washington, Dec 28 (ANI): Berkley Books has cancelled the publication of a disputed Holocaust memoir, embraced by Oprah Winfrey and others.

The publisher, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), decided to cancel publication of "Angel at the Fencem which was scheduled to come out in February, after receiving new information about author Herman Rosenblat from his agnet.

Herman Rosenblat's story of meeting his future wife at a fence while he was at a Nazi concentration camp had been widely questioned by scholars, friends and family members who said his tale was untrue.

Records prove that Rosenblat 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).

"Berkley Books is canceling publication of Angel at the Fence after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst. Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work," CBS News quoted the publisher, as stating.

According to Rosenblat and his wife, he was a prisoner at a sub-camp of Buchenwald and she a young Jewish girl pretending to be Christian and living nearby.

For months, they claimed they would meet on opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence.

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. (ANI)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

How awful that the Rosenblats lied about their story and that the publishers and movie makers and Oprah didn’t figure it out. So sad.

Some Holocaust love stories are true. The NY Times featured a story about the famous comic book artists Stan Lee and Neal Adams and a story they were publicizing.

The story is about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt who was a 19 year old art student at Auschwitz. There she was asked by the Jewish head of the children's camp to paint something to cheer them up. Dina painted a mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and in the end, Dina's art became the reason for her salvation.

Painting the mural for the children caused Dina to be taken in front of Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. 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 applied for a job to be an animator 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!