Letter to Rabbi Earl Kideckel

Rabbi Earl Kideckel 5/15/08

Temple Beth Torah

Holliston, MA

Dear Rabbi Kideckel,

Since we have not had the opportunity to speak together, I must make some assumptions in writing this letter. First, I assume that you know who I am. I was Misha Defonseca’s publisher, the one that she sued and against whom she won a massive judgment. I also assume that you are aware that Misha has admitted that her memoire was a hoax.

I am not sure whether you are familiar with a letter that was written by Naomi Aigner, president of Congregation Agudah Achim in December 1999 concerning that lawsuit and me. It is about that letter that I am writing you now.

I first saw the letter about a year before the trial. The woman who showed it to me was upset because she had extended enormous effort in support of Misha and she was shocked at being asked to give money as well. I, too, was shocked — by the contents of the letter and by the scathing, defamatory description of me. The letter contained many falsehoods including the statement that Misha was impoverished because of my publishing company and me.

At the time, Misha was not impoverished. I recently had subpoenaed her bank records and seen that she had almost a quarter of a million dollars passing through her accounts in the previous three years. Much of this money was as a direct result of my actions in enabling the publication of the French book. I am attaching the analysis of Misha’s finances in 1999 prepared by the genealogist who uncovered Misha’s fraud, so you can see for yourself.

Recently, other people have given me copies of that letter. I shudder to think how many people were sent the letter, how many others were shown the letter second-hand, how many more heard about it. I cringe at the thought that people believed such horrible things about me. Coming, as it did, under the letterhead of the temple, signed by the president of the temple, that letter undoubtedly has done inestimable damage to my reputation.

That said, I want to be perfectly clear that I do not blame Naomi Aigner, nor the temple, nor the rabbi, nor any of the Jewish people, nor anyone who passed the letter on. I know Misha, and how convincing she can be. I have seen how she turns people against each other and erects walls of fear and anger. I met a woman named Pat who gave Misha $2,000. Misha never told their mutual friend, Sharon, about the gift but instead said to Sharon that Pat had stolen $100 from her at a book signing. By turning people against each other and inciting distrust Misha kept people from talking and comparing notes about what they knew about her. That was one of the ways she maintained the hoax for two decades.

You may also know that I have engaged the services of an attorney and filed a complaint to overturn the judgment. What you may not know is that Misha was responsible for destroying my publishing company and my livelihood, stripping me of all my assets and ruining my reputation. Her attorneys sued my 86-year-old-father and seized my inheritance. They sued my daughter who still has a multimillion dollar lien on her home. I have spent the past ten years being mercilessly hounded by lawyers attempting to collect the $33 million judgment. It has been a living hell. And it’s still going on; just last week I got a threatening letter from Maurice.

I am writing to you today in the cause of truth and healing. I have no desire to extend the harm that Misha did to the Jewish people whom she so ruthlessly exploited. We all opened our hearts to her. We were all her victims. We are all traumatized. As a gesture of good will I want to tell you that, should you wish it, you may have an attorney of your choosing draft a Covenant Not to Sue in regard to that letter and I will sign it, no questions asked.

I would only request that those who were exploited by Misha to stand up and tell the world what happened to them — as a way of bearing witness, if you will. Right now we are all isolated in our own pain. I am hoping we can all join together and say, This is wrong. This is intolerable. This must stop. Now!

Without that effort, it will not stop. I have learned from two European journalists that Misha is working on another book. One of them said to me, “It will be more lies.” Misha and Maurice and their hoax machine are not going away unless people who know the truth decide that it’s time to call a halt to the deceit.

Karen Schulman has begun the process of gathering the truth. She has started a new blog:

http://silenceequalspermission.blogspot.com/

I hope that those who have been harmed by Misha and Maurice will speak out. The blog is one way to do that. Anyone wishing to post a message anonymously on the blog may do so.

Karen Schulman has offered to host a meeting between you, me, and possibly Sharon Sergeant at her home. Of course, you would be welcome to bring anyone else you think should be involved. I believe such a meeting would be one way to begin to pick up the pieces and move on.

Please let me know if you are agreeable to that.

Best wishes,

Jane Daniel

978 281-7732

A Report from Sharon Sergeant, forensic genealogist

May 5, 2008: the Internal Revenue Service has placed a lien on the Dudley, MA home of Misha and Maurice Defonseca for $60,109.13 in unpaid taxes owed by Maurice Defonseca for the tax year 2005. (below)

This is just the latest in a long, long history of financial irregularities involving the Defonsecas. When the regrettable form letter (below) was sent from Congregation Agudah Achim in December of 1999, the mailing list included not only members of the Jewish community, but many others who believed Misha Defonseca’s fraudulent Holocaust story. It is clear that none of Misha’s supporters had any idea that Misha and Maurice Defonseca were hiding their assets and income, nor that the Defonsecas were soliciting money, goods and services based on knowingly fraudulent representations.


Using forensic genealogical methods and financial analysis, we have begun to compile a financial time line. The following sources were used to create this report:

Public records including deeds, foreclosure notices and recorded liens in the Registry of Deeds, Norfolk County, Massachusetts on the Defonsecas’ residence at 7 Bogastow Circle, Millis, MA, from 1985 to June 2001 [www.norfolkdeeds.org.]

Bankruptcy records for February 2001 through May 2001 for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition filed by Maurice Defonseca to eliminate unpaid debts, some stemming from the early 1990s, as well as more than $50,000 in unpaid personal loans from individuals [United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Massachusetts, Case number 01-40839 JBR.]

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue records indicate in the bankruptcy petition that the Defonsecas did not file tax returns or pay Massachusetts income taxes for at least a decade from 1990 through 2000 [United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Massachusetts, Case number 01-40839 JBR.] Based on an estimated $44,000 in back state taxes owing for this period, payment for which was a requirement of the bankruptcy plan, Maurice Defonseca’s bankruptcy petition was withdrawn.

Bank records for three of the Defonsecas’ Middlesex Savings Bank accounts for the period December 1996 through March 2001 produced through discovery in the lawsuit [MICV 1998-02-456] against Jane Daniel and Mt Ivy Press.

The Worcester County, Massachusetts Registry of Deeds masslandrecords.com/malr/index.htm for the Defonsecas’ residence at 70 Mason Road, Dudley, MA, purchased in November 2003.

The Middlesex Superior Court trial court held in its Findings of Fact (MICV 1998-02-456):

“The Defonsecas' three bank accounts reveal deposits between December 1996 and February 2000 of over $243,700.00. The evidence never made clear how, notwithstanding that amount of deposits, the Defonsecas were claiming financial hardship, such that their home was foreclosed upon in 2001.”

The Norfolk County Registry of Deeds records indicate that the Defonsecas’ Millis home was not foreclosed as they claimed, but actually sold for a profit in June of 2001. The Defonsecas were not suffering financial hardship at the time they sold their home, but were hiding cash and other assets, while soliciting money, goods and services.

This pattern of misrepresentation was also true in December 1999, when the Congregation Agudah Achim solicitation letter went out. The Defonsecas were portraying themselves as being in desperate financial circumstances. In fact, the $50,000 in personal loans shown in the 2001 bankruptcy filing are not included in the $243,700 income confirmed by the court for the period including 1997, 1998 and 1999. Despite around $300,000 of income during this roughly three-year period, the Defonseca’s attorneys, as well as veterinarians, therapists, and other service providers were persuaded to provide their services for free. Of the people who were solicited for cash, the 2001 bankruptcy petition indicates that the amounts actually procured by the Defonsecas included as much as $20,000 from just one person.

What we currently know about the fraudulent solicitations is as follows.

° The Defonsecas made a habit of withdrawing large sums of cash from their bank accounts. Misha Defonseca’s cash withdrawals, from just one Framingham bank account (Middlesex Savings Bank, primarily from account #223631634) in 1999 totaled $53,920.

° The pattern of fraudulent solicitation is exemplified by the fact that the Defonsecas withdrew $10,000 in cash in March 1999 – just two weeks before the March 24, 1999 Boston Globe Dances With Wolves (Archive fee) article by Stephen Bailey reported the following:

In a lawsuit, Defonseca has charged that tiny Mt Ivy Press, L.P. has withheld royalties and underreported sales. Defonseca says she and her husband, Maurice, are in danger of losing their Millis home and have been reduced to taking food from Jewish charities.

“I would like to see Jane Daniel and Brett Kates eating dog food, as we had to, while they were withholding at least $27,000 owed to me for several months, somewhere in a bank account in the West Indies,” Defonseca says.

° This particular instance illustrates the discrepancy between what the Defonsecas were saying publicly, what the facts were, and what they were actually doing. In addition to their misrepresentation that they were destitute, the other alleged facts were also false or misleading. Note that there is no mention in the article that there was a June 1998 motion by the attorney for Misha’s ghostwriter, Vera Lee, asking the court to hold in escrow Mt Ivy Press’ earnings, which included the royalty payments. The motion was granted and thus the royalties were suspended. Nor does the article explain that the French book revenue was direct-wired from Editions Robert Laffont into Misha Defonseca’s bank account. (Laffont never paid royalties to Mt Ivy Press.)

There are still other unanswered questions raised by the facts contained in public records.

° 1994 marked the beginning of unpaid debts showing up in liens against the Defonsecas’ Millis home. By 1997 Misha Defonseca’s cash withdrawals from the Middlesex Savings Bank accounts totaled $54,000 from more than $102,000 in deposits. 1998 cash withdrawals grew to more than $74,000 from another $102,000 in 1998 deposits. At least one payment of $6,600 from Mt Ivy Press for the Disney option did not show up in these deposits. Where did this money go?

Another poignant example of the Defonseca’s exploitation of the generosity of individuals is this: A one thousand dollar short-term loan was solicited by Maurice Defonseca in April of 1997 purportedly to use for a mortgage payment. It was documented by a promissory note signed by Maurice Defonseca agreeing to repayment in May 1997. It remained unpaid in 2001, according to the bankruptcy records – despite the fact that the Defonsecas’ bank statements showed more than $65,000 in deposits from January through April of 1997. Why hadn’t they repaid a man who loaned them $1,000 in April of 1997, when they had access to more than one hundred thousand dollars in both of the years 1997 and 1998? How many other people gave them money and were not repaid?

In fact, when the Defonsecas refinanced their Millis home mortgage in July of 1998, they only took a little over $1000 in cash from these Middlesex Bank accounts for the months of July through September of 1998. What were they living on for that three-month period in 1998? Where did it come from? Where was it being held? How many other sources of income and accounts did they have?

The 2001 bankruptcy file also lists nine other individuals who provided un-repaid personal loans to the Defonsecas for the following amounts:
$20,000.00
$16,000.00
$4,000.00
$2,800.00
$2,000.00
$1,200.00
$1,500.00
$1,000.00
$1,000.00.

Not only do the Defonseca’s Middlesex Savings Bank accounts indicate large deposits and cash withdrawals, the records also show that the Defonsecas made a habit of depositing only a tiny fraction of large checks, while taking the balance of the check in cash at the time of deposit. Thus one deposit is recorded as $12.50, but the check cashed was $2,512.50. $2,500 was taken in cash, while the bank statement indicates a deposit of only shows $12.50. The cash withdrawal total for just this one bank is incomplete.

When the Defonsecas sold their Millis home in June of 2001 for $325,000 - but claimed that they had lost it to foreclosure, they were given shelter, food, medicine, and other gifts at the home of a Milford woman who took them in believing that they were homeless and destitute. In reality, they had at least $90,000 in earned income for the year, and still continued to solicit aid from others.

By November of 2003, the Defonsecas had finally exhausted the emotional and financial resources of the compassionate woman who took them into her Milford home. She was forced to engage a lawyer to evict them from her home. They immediately purchased a new home in Dudley, MA for $190,000 plus two new cars with cash, and left more than $17,000 worth of damage at the home of the woman who had supported them for two and a half years.

During this period Misha approached a decorated Viet Nam vet whom she met years earlier at a speaking engagement in a prison where he incarcerated. She told him she was desperate and had lost her home to foreclosure. His 48 year-old wife was dying of cancer at the time. Misha knew that the vet was receiving a military pension. She told him, Your wife is dying and you are in prison so you don’t need the money. He sent her approximately $500 a month until the federal government suspended pension payments for all incarcerated veterans.

This analysis is preliminary and likely represents only the tip of the iceberg of fraudulent financial activity by the Defonsecas.

Article in Today's Jewish Advocate....

Defonseca fallout still felt months after revelation of inauthenticity

Panel formed to discuss memoir hoax's aftermath

By Lorne Bell - Friday May 16 2008

When Dudley, Mass. resident Misha Defonseca admitted last February that her Holocaust memoir, “Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years,” was a fake, Jews in Greater Boston and across Europe were shocked.

And although Defonseca’s book sold only 5,000 copies in the U.S., her elaborate deception continues to have far-reaching effects. Jane Daniel, the original publisher of Defonseca’s book, has recently joined Waltham-based genealogist Sharon Sergeant; historian and Holocaust author Susie Davidson; and local Holocaust survivor Rosian Zerner to discuss the book’s fallout as part of a series of panel discussions titled, “Deception and its Aftermath.”

“Misha mined the Jewish community and left behind her a wake of trauma,” said Daniel. “A lot of people are still in a state of shock, and feel wounded and betrayed. It is chutzpah beyond all measure.”
Defonseca’s fraudulence was revealed this winter, when Sergeant posted a response on Daniel’s Web log offering to help her uncover the author’s true past. Defonseca had already won a lawsuit against Daniel’s small publishing company, Mt. Ivy Press, in 2001, in which she claimed Daniel had withheld royalties and failed to adequately promote the book. Daniel has since filed a countersuit to overturn the court’s decision, based in part on the original contract’s presumption that Defonseca’s story was not a fictional account.
“I e-mailed Jane [Daniel] and said that I thought this case could be solved, that [Defonseca’s] identity could be verified,” said Sergeant.

Sergeant would soon reveal the truth behind the author’s fabricated story, disproving Defonseca’s claims that she had trekked across Europe as a wartime orphan, wandered in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto and taken refuge with a pack of wolves. Instead, Defonseca, whose real name was Monique De Wael, lived in Belgium with her uncle and grandfather during the war. And she is not Jewish.
“There’s so much in [the book] that’s convoluted and doesn’t have anything to do with reality,” said Sergeant. “She’s not who she said she was, and whatever her initial motivation, this became what I call a Misha Money Machine – it became a business.”

That “business” has wiped out Daniel’s own, after the 2001 ruling required Mt. Ivy Press to pay Defonseca and her French ghostwriter, Vera Lee, $32.4 million in damages.
“That’s how shnookered the court was,” Daniel said.

But the deception stretches far beyond the court and Mt. Ivy Press. After hearing that Defonseca and her husband’s Millis home was being foreclosed in 2001, Karen Schulman, a 62-year-old Jewish resident of Milford, took the couple and their 22 cats into her ranch home. “All I could think was that here is this woman who went through the Holocaust and now she is losing more – this time her home,” Schulman said. “Never in my life did I think that this was a scam.”

Defonseca and her husband, a high-level computer company executive, lived with Schulman for more than two years before she finally asked them to leave. Although she said the couple insisted on paying her $500 each month, they also reportedly purchased two new cars and, unbeknownst to Schulman, a new home in nearby Dudley. “I kept telling myself that she would not do this to me – look at what I have done for her,” said Schulman. “But she is a clever little fox. In my opinion, she needs to go to prison.”

Defonseca’s tale has also cast unfair doubts upon the credibility of true Holocaust survivors, according to Zerner. “It amazes me that there are still people who rationalize and sidestep the deception and essence of what she has done,” said Zerner. “She stole our identities as survivors. It is an offense beyond what is tolerable.”

Zerner’s own story closely resembles the fabricated past that Defonseca claimed in her book (although she never lived with wolves). As a child she was corralled into the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, and was shuffled from one hiding spot to another during the war. She said she hopes the panel discussion can help to alleviate concerns of other survivors and those who might doubt their stories.

Davidson, whose 2005 book, “I Refused to Die,” documents the lives of 20 survivors and concentration camp liberators, agreed. “Somebody said that to survive the Holocaust, your story had to be incredible and unbelievable,” said Davidson. “But [this incident] should not disauthenticate those experiences of true survivors whose stories are just as incredible and unimaginable and show the bravery, ingenuity and in many cases the shear luck that allowed these people to rise above the odds and survive.”

http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/news/?content_id=4984

New panel explores widespread ramifications of recently-revealed Holocaust memoir hoax

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Susie Davidson
617-566-7557
Susie_d@yahoo.com

New panel explores widespread ramifications of recently-revealed Holocaust memoir hoax

In February, 2008, Misha Defonseca confessed that her bestselling autobiography, “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” published in 1997, was a hoax. Publisher Jane Daniel appears in a new speaking tour addressing the hoax, along with genealogist Sharon Sergeant, who compiled the evidence that led to Defonseca’s confession; oral historian and Holocaust author Susie Davidson (“I Refused to Die”); and Holocaust child survivor Rosian Zerner.

The panel will explore the following areas:
° What are the consequences when an impostor usurps Holocaust history and places real survivors in question?
° In the light of other recent fake memoirs, how can publishers be sure that what they publish is true?
° What effect does a fake Holocaust testimonial have on deniers of the Holocaust?
° How did Misha Defonseca sustain the hoax for ten years and how was it exposed?

An open discussion period will follow the presentation.

Full information follows.

For booking information, contact Susie Davidson at Susie_d@yahoo.com or 617-566-7557.

New panel explores widespread ramifications of recently-revealed Holocaust memoir hoax

In recognition of Yom HaShoah, I would like to bring to your attention a new program being offered in the Boston area. As you may be aware, recently a Massachusetts woman, Misha Defonseca, confessed that her internationally-bestselling autobiography, “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” was actually a hoax.

This new program, called “Deception and its Aftermath,” presents four women affected by the challenges that stem from this revelation, who discuss protecting the truth of the Holocaust from those who would usurp it.

Misha Defonseca began telling her fabricated story in 1989 when she spoke at a local synagogue on Yom HaShoah. Defonseca recounted that, as a seven-year-old child living in occupied Belgium, she set off on foot across the European theatre of war in search of her parents, who had been arrested by the Nazis. Twice during her travels, she said, she was befriended by wolves. It was all a lie. The truth is that she spent the war years at home with her Catholic family.

Nevertheless, for years Defonseca was warmly embraced by the local Jewish community. Those who were deceived by her story booked appearances for her, attended her speeches in schools and universities, and donated money. Such prominent figures as Elie Wiesel, the late Leonard Zakim, and Rabbi Albert Axelrod, then Chaplain of Brandeis University, contributed liner notes for her book.

The aftermath of her confession personally and profoundly impacts thousands in the Boston area who heard her speak and offered their support. Beyond that, this revelation affects those who gather stories of Holocaust survivors and Holocaust survivors themselves. There remain innumerable questions as to how such a monumental fraud could have occurred.

The panelists include:

Jane Daniel of Mt Ivy Press, the publisher whose original American edition of “Misha” was the basis of an international bestseller and a French feature film. Daniel herself painstakingly fact-checked the story line by line and employed other researchers, but in the end was also taken in. Defonseca sued Daniel, her U.S. publisher, in 1998, winning a $22 million judgment and the return of all rights to the story based on the finding that Mt Ivy had failed to sufficiently promote her book. Daniel has filed a lawsuit to overturn the judgment and posted chapters of her upcoming book on a blog.

Sharon Sergeant, the forensic genealogist who put together the team of researchers, who included real “hidden children” Holocaust survivors, that amassed the indisputable evidence leading to Defonseca’s confession. Sergeant’s work was made more challenging by the fact that Belgium has privacy laws that seal vital records for 100 years. As a member of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council Board of Directors, Sergeant advocates for open records to prevent fraud; in this instance, she employed a methodology that can be used by anyone doing historical research on their own family.

Susie Davidson, journalist for the Jewish Advocate and weeklies, poet, and author of "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II" and "Jewish Life in Postwar Germany." She speaks about and teaches courses on the Holocaust and global genocide with Dachau liberator Chan Rogers, and organizes genocide awareness events with the local Armenian and Rwandan communities. Davidson is a co-coordinator of the Boston chapter of COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and a board member of the Boston-based activist umbrella organization Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow.

Rosian Zerner, who survived the Holocaust in the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania, and in hiding. She is the former Vice President of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust, where she also served on the Advisory Board and as elected Secretary. She is the contact person for the Greater Boston Child Survivor group, where she serves as representative on the WFJCS Governing Board and as Liaison to “Generations After,” a group for descendants of survivors. She is the Jewish Community Relations Council representative from the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston, where she serves on the Executive Committee. She is on the Holocaust survivors' Advisory Board (Hakalah) at the Jewish Family and Children's Service, is a docent for the New England Holocaust Memorial, and is on the Yom Hashoah Planning Committee and the Board of American Friends of Mogen Dovid Adom. Zerner has been the keynote speaker at the annual Yom HaShoah commemoration at Faneuil Hall, speaks at universities, synagogues, senior centers, clubs and organizations, and is an advocate on behalf of survivors.

# # #

From the Providence Journal

Boston author’s book a Holocaust hoax

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 27, 2008

Misha Defonseca, in Millis, Mass.

The Providence Journal / RACHEL RITCHIE
On Holocaust Memorial Day this Thursday, there will be fewer eyewitness testimonies than the year before. Within the lifetimes of most people reading these words, there will be none. That is the work of time, and unalterable.

Each passing year brings greater and greater reliance on memoirs, therefore — written memories of atrocities, unspeakable crimes, incredible survival stories by those who experienced them. The vast majority are the sacred truth. But some, we are learning, are the work of frauds who would alter history for their own benefit.

The latest revelation came as a personal shock, because I had been an unwitting accomplice.

In 1997, in one of my first author profiles as books editor, I wrote about Misha Defonseca, of Millis, Mass., and her then-new book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years. I had heard her speak before reading the book, and had fallen under the spell of her story.

As she told it, she was seven years old in 1941, living in Brussels, Belgium, when the Nazis came to her home and arrested her Jewish parents. Misha had been hustled off to live with another family, but instead she set off on foot, alone and with only a tiny compass to guide her way eastward, to find her parents.

“Thus began a terrible odyssey,” I wrote 11 years ago. “Wandering alone on her hopeless quest for four years, clear across occupied Europe, through Germany, into Russia and back again, Misha witnessed greater horrors than most soldiers experienced on the front lines.” She wrote of entering and then escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto; living for days in midwinter without food or shelter; stabbing a Nazi soldier to death; and, perhaps most incredibly, living with a pack of wolves.

It was a wonderful story, and in fact I wondered. It “strains credulity,” I wrote, adding: “Misha offers no proof. There is none, she says. Perhaps, she says, one of the nameless people she encountered in those years will see her book and remember, and get in touch with her. She hopes so.”

That brief caveat having been delivered, I turned back to the absorbing “facts” as Defonseca related them into my tape recorder there in the living room of her modest house outside Boston.

The book, produced on a shoestring by tiny Mt. Ivy Press, had modest sales here, despite a glowing endorsement from none other than Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize-winning Holocaust survivor and scholar. It achieved a new life in Europe, however, where it sold more than 30,000 copies in France and Italy, was translated into 18 languages, and turned into a film, Survivre Avec les Loups (Living With Wolves), which opened in Paris in January.

Suspicions were raised almost from the first, but Defonseca had covered her tracks well. Not until the film was released did experts on wolf behavior and the Holocaust in Belgium publicly question details. Meanwhile, a genealogist in Massachusetts, working with colleagues in Brussels, found the smoking-gun evidence about her parents that finally prompted Defonseca to confess.

It was all a lie, she told the Associated Press last month. Her real name, until she married her husband, Maurice Defonseca, was Monique De Wael. She was, indeed, orphaned when her parents, who were in the Belgian resistance, were put to death by the Nazis. But they were Catholic, not Jewish, and Defonseca was raised, uneventfully, by relatives, not wolves.

In a statement released through her lawyer, Defonseca said, “The story in the book is mine. It is not the actual reality — it was my reality, my way of surviving. At first I did not want to publish it, but then I was convinced by Jane Daniel.”

The story of her relationship with Daniel, who published the book more or less single-handedly, is nearly as depressing as her own fraudulent account.

The short version: Daniel was sued by the book’s ghostwriter, Vera Lee, for illegally withholding proceeds from the book’s sales from Lee and Defonseca. In 2002, she was found guilty. The judgment was for nearly $33 million.

Daniel, who reportedly published the book despite warnings from two experts who doubted its veracity, has been among the most ardent of the debunkers since the suit was filed against her. Now she has countersued, claiming the writers should get nothing because they breached the contract, which required them to be truthful. That suit is pending.

Meanwhile, thoughtful people inside and outside the Jewish community are responding with expressions ranging from outrage to sorrow.

“It is sad. It’s just very sad,” said Elie Wiesel, who heads the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. Reached by phone in New York last week, he told the Journal that the most important thing to note is that “very few” of the hundreds of Holocaust memoirs published in recent years have been hoaxes. But each one is a blow.

“In truth, I don’t recall reading it,” he said of Defonseca’s book, which he described as “very moving” when asked to endorse it in 1997.

“You see, when I speak with Holocaust survivors, I am always urging them to write, write, write. So whenever I receive a memoir, I am willing to say something about it. But it doesn’t mean I have read every page.”

Others have been more outspoken.

“What happened to the Jews was the worst atrocity in history, and people who exploit it for profit, by posing as Jews or lying about being part of the experience, insult those who went through it,” Lawrence L. Langer, an authority on Holocaust narratives at Simmons College, in Boston, told the Boston Globe. Langer identified himself as one of those experts who originally counseled Daniel not to publish Defonseca’s memoir. “It is as bad as saying the Holocaust never happened,” he concluded.

Which brings up the most damning aspect of the entire episode: the fact that Defonseca’s hoax is now being used as ammunition by those who would deny, or play down, the Holocaust for their own reasons.

Here’s what David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, had to say on his Web site:

“This case must cast doubt on many other ridiculously impossible Holocaust tales that have been sold as ‘true stories’ to a trusting public. The fact that the media would shamelessly promote a patently ridiculous story of a young girl trudging 5,000 kilometers through Europe with a pack of wolves shows the uncritical attitude of the media to all things ‘Holocaust.’ ”

I ended my story of 11 years ago with a quote from Defonseca. Little did I know then how ironic it would seem now.

She told her story, she said, because “bigotry and prejudice and hatred — they have not disappeared. And I do it for this reason.

“But I have not confidence in the human race. Not at all.”

driggs@projo.com

From National Law Journal...

©2008 National Law Journal Online

Page printed from: http://www.nlj.com

WEB-ONLY

Firm named in suit filed over controversial Holocaust book

Sheri Qualters / Staff reporter

April 15, 2008

BOSTON — A Massachusetts publisher has filed a new lawsuit in Middlesex Superior Court to fight a $33 million judgment that stemmed from a business dispute about a book written by a woman who claimed wolves befriended her during the Holocaust.

Jane Daniel of Gloucester, Mass. and her company Mt. Ivy Press sued the writer Monique De Wael, who is also known as Misha Defonseca and her ghostwriter Vera Lee. Defonseca and Lee are both Massachusetts residents.

Daniel also named the Boston law firm Edward Angell Palmer & Dodge on the lawsuit. Mt. Ivy Press v. DeWael, No. MICV2008-01432 (Middlesex Co., Mass., Super. Ct.)

In February, Defonseca's public statements that she fabricated some of the best-selling book led to widespread publicity. Daniel is asking the court to set aside judgment for the fraud and relief from the prior judgment.

Lee initially sued Daniel, Mt. Ivy Press and Defonseca for breach of contract, fraud and other claims and Daniel countersued. Lee v. Mt. Ivy Press, No. MICV1998-02456 (Middlesex Co., Mass., Super. Ct.).

In August 2001, a jury found that Mt. Ivy Press has breached its publishing agreement with Lee and Defonseca and had violated Massachusetts consumer protection laws in its business dealings with them.

The jury awarded damages of about $11 million to the plaintiffs, which the trial court later tripled to $33 million for the consumer protection violations. The court also gave Defonseca the dramatic, movie, television and radio rights.

Daniel appealed, and the Appeals Court of Massachusetts upheld the lower court's ruling and denied Daniel's motion for a new trial. Vera Lee v. Mt. Ivy Press, No. 2003-P-1496 (Mass. App. Ct.).

Lee's attorney Frank J. Frisoli Jr. of Frisoli & Frisoli in Cambridge, Mass. said Daniel pocketed the revenue from the book and didn't pay Defonseca or Lee.

"The judgment is because she stole money she cheated them out of the revenue from the work," Frisoli said.

Frisoli also said some of the statements in the new complaint are inconsistent with the facts disclosed at the trial.

"This issue was already litigated," Frisoli said. "This complaint has no merit."

Daniel's lawyer Joseph M. Orlando of Orlando & Associates in Gloucester, Mass. said the judgment awarded to Defonseca and Lee was "based on perjured testimony which resulted in a fraud on the court." Orlando also said that Defonseca and Lee signed contracts with Mt. Ivy Press declaring that Defonseca's story was truthful and accurate when it was not.

"That fact casts a shadow over every finding by the jury and the court, including those in regards to finances," Orlando said. "Once the judgment is vacated, auditors will have the opportunity to review all the financial issues to determine the truth."

In a statement, Edward Angell said it was named in the current and prior case only because its predecessor firm held funds in dispute among its former clients, Mt. Ivy Press, Defonseca and Lee. "Mt. Ivy Press is now seeking a declaration that it is entitled to client funds that the firm was directed in the earlier case to pay to Ms. Defonseca and Ms. Lee."

Press Release: Legal Action Follows Expose of Holocaust Fraud

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Email contact: Caroline Best

distribution.media@gmail.com

April 9, 2008

Publisher seeks to overturn $33 million judgment

The third act of a decade-long legal drama began on April 8 when publisher Jane Daniel filed a complaint to overturn the judgment against herself and her company, Mt Ivy Press, brought by Misha Defonseca and her ghost writer Vera Lee, over their book, MISHA A Memoire of the Holocaust Years. The trial ended in 2001 with an award to the plaintiffs of $11 million, which was trebled by the court to $33 million, then the second largest award in Massachusetts history.

"This case has been an unbelievable ordeal. My hope now is that I will be able to restore my good name," says Daniel. The new lawsuit follows the stunning confession by Defonseca on February 28, 2008 that her autobiographical account of walking 3,000 miles across the European theater of war, at the age of seven, searching for her deported Jewish parents, at times living with wolves, was completely fabricated. Her book, an international bestseller, has been translated into 18 languages and made into a French feature film, "Survival with Wolves," that premiered in Paris in January.

Although there were historians who questioned the authenticity of the story, the hoax went unchallenged for twenty years until an American genealogist, Sharon Sergeant, unearthed documents that proved Defonseca's real identity and showed that she had spent the war years in the home of her Catholic family.

Daniel's attorney, Joseph Orlando of Gloucester, MA says his client's case is unprecedented in his experience. "In the Complaint we allege that Defonseca perpetrated a fraud and a hoax based upon one of the great historical tragedies known to mankind, the Holocaust and that Defonseca's fraudulent autobiography diminishes and mocks the unimaginable suffering of millions of Jews ... at the hands of the Nazis."

In July of 2007, Daniel began writing a book based on her decade-long legal battles and posting chapters as a blog, BESTSELLERthebook.blogspot.com, with the request that anyone having information on the case contact her. Five months later, forensic genealogist Sharon Sergeant emailed her expressing her belief that she could solve the mystery. The clues were limited. In Defonseca's account she says she never knew her Jewish surname, her date and place of birth or any family names. The name she used, Monique DeWael, was a "false identity," she said, given to her by the Belgian "foster family" that hid her from the Nazis. In addition to the lack of personal information on Defonseca, Sergeant's efforts were hampered by Belgium's privacy laws that seal all vital records for 100 years.

Sergeant assembled a team that included real Jewish hidden children in the U.S. and Belgium who were the key to bringing the truth to light. "This work was very 'close to the bone' for them. It brought back excruciating memories of their own lost families," says Sergeant. "They obtained Defonseca's baptismal record and her first grade school registration that provided the central evidence needed to uncover the fraud."

When the documents appeared on Daniel's blog, they set off a firestorm across the Belgian and French media, with hour-by-hour new revelations of mounting proof that Defonseca's "memoire" was based on lies, including an interview with her 88-year-old cousin who recalled her as a child. After ten days of intense pressure, Defonseca released a statement in the leading daily newspaper, Le Soir, saying, "It is not the truth but it is my truth. I always felt Jewish."

The text of the entire complaint is online at: Complaint Against Misha Defonseca, et. al.

# # #

Complaint Filed In Middlesex Superior Court Against Misha Defonseca et. al.

Yesterday a complaint was filed in Middlesex Superior Court on behalf of Jane Daniel and Mount Ivy press against Monique DeWael, a/k/a Misha Defonseca, Vera Lee, and Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge. The complaint was filed by attorneys Joseph M. Orlando and Brian M. McCormick.

In part, the Complaint reads:

II. STATEMENT OF FACTS

6. In 1994, the plaintiff, Daniel, was working as a publisher/editor at Mt Ivy Press, LP, a small publishing company, founded by the plaintiff, the previous year.

7. In the course of the plaintiff's business, the plaintiff, Daniel, met the defendant, Defonseca.

8. When the plaintiff first met the defendant, Defonseca, Defonseca related that:

a. As a Jewish child, age 7, she was living in Belgium, when her parents were arrested by the Nazis in 1941;

b. She was placed in a foster home, and she was given a false identity, Monique DeWael, age four. Such identity was assumed for the purposes of protecting herself from the Nazis;

c. Defonseca was befriended by a man, who she referred to as "grandfather," whose name was Ernest DeWael, who gave her a tiny compass, and showed her a map of Europe;

d. When Ernest DeWael expressed to Defonseca concern that the Nazis would come for her, Defonseca set out on a journey "to the East" in search of her parents;

e. Over the next four years, Defonseca walked three thousand miles across the European theater of war, hiding in forests where twice she was befriended by wolves.

9. Defonseca further related to the plaintiff that she had been telling her story, and soliciting contributions from speaking engagements since approximately 1989-1990, and had been warmly embraced by the Jewish community in the Boston area and elsewhere.

10. Upon hearing the story, as related by the defendant, Defonseca, the plaintiff offered to publish Defonseca's autobiography (hereinafter, "the book").

11. Defonseca engaged a French-speaking writer, defendant, Vera Lee, to ghostwrite Defonseca's story, as Defonseca's command of the English language was weak.

12. Defonseca and Lee signed a collaboration agreement, intended to set forth the respective rights of the parties.

13. Both Defonseca and Lee signed publishing agreements with Mt Ivy Press, LP, in August of 1995.

14. Both publishing agreements contained the following warranty:

A. The Author represents and warrants to the Publisher that, with respect to the Work as submitted by Author, excluding revisions or additions by Publisher (i) the Work is not in the public domain; (ii) the Author and her collaborator are the sole and exclusive owners of the Work and have full power, free of any rights of any nature whatsoever in any one that mightinterfere therewith, to enter into this Agreement and to grant the rights hereby conveyed to the Publisher, (iii) the Work has not heretofore been published in whole or in part; (iv) the Work is original except for material in the public domain and such excerpts from other works as may be included with the written permission of the owners thereof; (v) the Work does not, and if published will not, infringe upon any proprietary right at common law; or any statutory copyright, or trade names, or patent, or trademark rights, or any other right whatsoever, (vi) the Work contains no matter whatsoever that is obscene, libelous, in violation of any right of privacy, or otherwise in contravention of law or the right of any third party; (vii) all statements of fact are true or based upon reasonable belief, except for facts and identities deliberately misstated to preserve confidentiality or for other valid reasons, provided the Author notifies the Publisher thereof (viii) the Work, if biographical or “as told to” the Author, is authentic, and (ix) the Author will not hereafter enter into any agreement or understanding with any person, firm, or corporation that might conflict with the rights herein granted to the Publisher.

15. Defonseca and Lee set to work to draft the manuscript. Over time, disagreements arose between Lee and Defonseca regarding the scheduling of time to work together on the manuscript.

16. During the same time frame, disputes began to arise between Lee, Daniel, and Defonseca, regarding the plaintiff's editorial dissatisfaction with respect to the form, substance, and delayed production time of the manuscript.

17. Defonseca's account of her experience could not be subjected to standard verification and process, due to the absence of certain critical information, including, but not limited to:

a. Defonseca reported that she did not know, and had never been told, her Jewish surname;

b. She had simply been called "Mischke," and never known her parents by any names other than "Gerusha,"(her mother, a Russian Jew), and "Reuven,"(her father, a German Jew);

c. Her parents were emigrees to Belgium;

d. She did not know her place of birth, but represented that she suspected it may have been Poland.

18. In the course of her research, the plaintiff, Daniel, learned that, at times, Jewish children of the Holocaust lost their identities when their parents were taken away.

19. Without the names, date, and place of birth of "Mischke," it was not possible for the plaintiff to check the personal aspects of the story.

20. To ready the manuscript for publication, the plaintiff attempted to undertake fact checking, including verifying historical and descriptive details, researching historical events, studying the flora and fauna of geographical locations and investigating behavior of wolves in the wild, etc.

21. The plaintiff also sent the manuscript to wolf experts, and to Jewish scholars and Holocaust experts for review.

22. Enthusiastic endorsements were returned from several luminaries, including the chaplain of Brandeis University, Rabbi Albert Axelrod, Noble Laureate and renowned Holocaust survivor, Eli Wiesel, Leonard Zakim, director of the New England region of the Anti-Defamation League, and the North American Wolf Foundation.

23. The American book was published in April 1997, under the title, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years. American edition, was followed shortly thereafter by a French version, published by Editions Lafont, under the title, Surivre avec les loups, (Survival with Wolves), the production of which was under the oversight of Defonseca exclusively. Neither Mt Ivy Press, nor Jane Daniel, had any input with respect to the French edition, other than to make several specific minor corrections request by Lafont. Other foreign editions followed.

24. Two significant changes were made in the Lafont editions, and subsequent editions controlled by Defonseca. Identifying photographs were removed, and the "false identity" of "Mischke" was changed from Monique DeWael, to Monique Valle.

25. In 1997, Lee initiated a suit against plaintiffs Daniel and Mt Ivy Press, and defendant, Defonseca, in Middlesex Superior Court, C.A. No. 98-2456, alleging, among other things, breach of contract.

26. From the inception of the underlying litigation in May 1998, until March 1999, Defonseca represented herself.

27. In the course of her self-representation, defendant, Defonseca, filed a counter-claim against Lee, affirmatively representing, among other things, breach of contract.

28. The counter-claim filed by Defonseca against Lee represented that Defonseca had complied with all of the terms of the collaboration agreement, including that the book was, "based on the author's life experience, accomplishments, and impact upon society."

To read the full text of the complaint, click here.

Press Release to follow.

Another Letter from a Reader

Dear Jane,

My name is Karen Schulman. I am speaking out because I want to share my first-hand experiences with Misha Defonseca and her husband, Maurice.

Misha and her husband lived with me in my home in Milford, Massachusetts for two and a half years. I had heard Misha speak publicly about her amazing experiences during the Holocaust at Borders Bookstore and at a performance at Holliston High School of the play, The Diary of Ann Frank. I was very touched by her story.

I had worked in the department of nursing, telemetry and progressive care unit of Milford Regional Medical Center as a medical secretary and then at the CVS in Medway. One day a neighbor of the Defonsecas came in to fill a prescription. We struck up a conversation and the neighbor said, “Do you know what’s happened to them? They’re about to lose their house to foreclosure.” I was shocked. I phoned the Defonseca’s and Maurice answered the phone. He confirmed what I had been told and added that they had no money and didn’t know what to do. I offered to allow them the use of a wing in my large house consisting of four rooms and a bath until they could get on their feet again. They moved in on June 6, 2001, along with 24 cats and two dogs.

(left, damage to floor caused by cat urine and mold) I didn’t ask for any payment but Misha insisted on giving $500 a month. Misha never helped with any of the housework. They used my kitchen. Misha’s son and his future wife stayed at my house when they came for a visit. Misha wanted them to sleep in the backyard but I didn’t think it was appropriate in my neighborhood for them to camp out. They ended up sleeping on my dining room floor among all the boxes that belonged to Misha.

Maurice had a job in Hopkinton. I allowed him to use my car to drive to work and filled the tank for him. I also drove Misha on errands. I wined and dined them, took them out to dinner often and always paid the tab. At one time I accompanied Misha to Bloomingdales when she spent $250 to $300 on make-up. Once on a shopping trip I saw her hide things she had not paid for under her real purchases and take them from the store. I was so stunned that I questioned if I had actually seen it.

Delivery trucks arrived frequently delivering packages of goods Misha had ordered. I wondered how they could afford these things but assumed that Maurice was making good money in his job in an engineering company.

(left, a few of about a dozen litter boxes) Misha used to say “People are no good” and “Americans are stupid.” “Stupid Americans, stupid Americans,” she said it all the time. She said her son couldn’t qualify for higher education in Belgium where educational standards were high but he could get into a college in the US because the American schools had lower academic standards.

I have known many Holocaust survivors. Misha was very different! For one thing, she didn’t understand any of the Yiddish words I used. When I asked her why, she said her mother never taught her Yiddish. She said, “Hiltler took my first family away” and that’s why she needed so many animals. Misha had a bas mitzvah, I believe in Holliston, and learned to speak Hebrew and to chant from the Torah.

Eventually I got fed up. My friend Barbara Beattie, who also had been taken in by the Defonsecas, urged me to see a lawyer to get them out of my home. When I told them to leave they were angry. How could you do this to us, they demanded.

(left, cat urine damage to rugs) When they finally left, on November 30, 2003, I had $17,000 to $18,000 worth of damage to contend with. I had to have the hardwood floors taken up and replaced because they were saturated with cat urine. I had to remove the wallpaper and carpeting because of cat spray and have the whole area painted. I replaced whole windows that were broken. After they left I learned that they had not lost their home to foreclosure as they claimed, they sold it for $325,000. I learned they were not destitute either. In 2001 when I took them in Maurice earned $70,000 from his job (this figure was on a bankruptcy filing Maurice made.) From my house they moved to their new home in Dudley and paid cash for it, $190,000, plus two brand new cars.

In closing I would say that Misha and Maurice are very manipulative and deceitful. They know exactly how to get what they want from soft hearted people. I feel cheated, exploited, disrespected and abused.

Signed,

Karen Schulman

Letters from Readers....

Readers may be interested in these letters that appeared about the Defonseca saga in the Globe:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2008/03/07/taken_in_by_a_holocaust_memoir/

Taken in by a Holocaust memoir
March 7, 2008

AS A chronicler of Holocaust memoirs, I read the saga of Misha Defonseca and publisher Jane Daniel with interest and more than a little apprehension ("Den of lies," Living/Arts, March 1).
It is indeed difficult if not impossible to even check on, let alone determine, the veracity of the stories of Holocaust survivors. Nazi records, if there is anything of relevance in them regarding individual survivors, are only just now beginning to come out, as in the case of the recently released Bad Arolsen archives. Often, one has little to rely on besides an occasional lucky link between available records and a traumatized, and perhaps somewhat compromised, elderly memory. Exaggeration, embellishment, and fabrication, which can and do exist in any interviewing, always end disastrously, as we see in this saga, which even drew in the likes of Elie Wiesel.

Thus, going into the collecting process with hope for monetary success is ambiguous at best and futile at worst. Yes, Daniel has expenses and business concerns. But in most cases, documenting the memoirs of others does not result in financial gain. Certainly with regard to atrocities such as the Holocaust, the preservation of memories holds other rich rewards for both the teller and the scribe, but most authors know to keep their day jobs.

SUSIE DAVIDSON
Brookline
The writer, a journalist for the Jewish Advocate, is the author of "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II" and "Jewish Life in Postwar Germany"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2008/03/18/misguided_view_on_veracity_of_holocaust_memories/

__________________________________________________________

Misguided view on veracity of Holocaust memories
March 18, 2008
SUSIE DAVIDSON'S assertion that it is is misguided and should not remain unchallenged ("Taken in by a Holocaust memoir," Letters, March 7). It is also not true that Nazi records "are only just now beginning to come out." Archives have been available in Germany and elsewhere for decades to validate the roundups and deportation of Jews from particular communities in Europe.
Expecting witnesses who tell of their ordeals on transports and in camps to offer proof that they were in a particular ghetto or camp is like Swiss bank officials demanding that children of survivors whose parents had been gassed furnish copies of the death certificates.
But most disturbing is Davidson's claim that, when interviewing Holocaust survivors, about all we have to rely on is "a traumatized, and perhaps somewhat compromised, elderly memory." As someone who has spent more than a decade interviewing Holocaust survivors, I have found the exact reverse to be true.
Misha Defonseca's book is so full of confirmable historical errors that on that basis alone it was possible for informed readers to recognize that her narrative could not be true.

LAWRENCE L. LANGER,
West Newton
The writer is the author of "Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory."

_______________________________________________________________

Statements regarding verification of Holocaust stories still ring true

I stand by my assertions that were taken to task by Lawrence Langer ("Misguided view on veracity of Holocaust memories," Letters, March 18). My statement that Langer quoted, "it is difficult if not impossible to even check on, let alone determine, the veracity of the stories of Holocaust survivors," concerns, as it states, survivors' actual stories, rather than the Nazi deportation archives Langer mentions (which I have seen, some in actuality, in Germany).
Langer analogizes my statements on lack of supporting documentation to my asking the survivors I have interviewed to furnish proof. I have never done such a thing; to the contrary, over the past several years, I have organized public events, always sold my books at cost, charged no speaker fee though I invited and paid other supporting speakers, and, most importantly, publicly read these stories in forums ranging from the Boston Public Library to myriad bookstores, classrooms, synagogues, senior and veterans' centers in an effort to spread awareness of the bravery of these people during the terrible times they lived through.
Yes, I have taken these dear souls at their word. That does not mean I believe that every word is inscribed, and I'm sure the survivors wouldn't either. No memory is perfect. Trauma is affecting. Although I have done my best to verify what survivors in my books have told me, feel that the stories are true, like Langer am highly impressed at their ability to recount their tales, and wholly believe in their sincerity and honesty, I am not afraid to state that I would never take credit for 100 percent, iron-clad verifiability.

SUSIE DAVIDSON
Brookline

_______________________________________________________________

To: letter@globe.com
Subject: Records, as well as memory, can indeed be fallible
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:37:07 +0000

I beg to differ with Lawrence Langer. First, I have a hard time believing that Nazi records released thus far have been all that forthcoming, let alone totally forthright. Second, the sheer breadth of fallout from the deception of Misha DeFonseca alone speaks for the need to be as careful as Susie Davidson has been in her books.
I recently saw a local public television show try to deal with having had a World War II soldier on the preview hour to Ken Burns' documentary "The War", telling tall tales about his bravery that were soon unveiled as fabrication. This and DeFonseca's book have certainly not been the only instances of unintentional publication and broadcasting of fraudulent or incorrect memoirs in the media, because, as Davidson said, memory, as well as recordkeeping, are not always correct.
As the nephew and namesake of one of the navigators of the Exodus 1947, whose own story few would believe if it weren't true, I appreciate writers like Davidson who make the effort to verify, admit they can be fallible, and do their work for no personal gain.

FRANK LEVINE
Malden

__________________________________________________________________

I REPRESENTED Misha Defonseca in litigation against Jane Daniel. I worked closely with Defonseca for more than six years. I learned that her memoir was a fabrication when her statement was published in the Globe.
The article cites Lawrence L. Langer as expressing outrage that anyone could exploit the Holocaust for profit. Langer, an authority on the subject, goes so far as to compare them to Holocaust deniers. I think this is an unfortunate overstatement.
The irony is that Defonseca's real story seems to be even more compelling than the fabrication. According to the researcher who uncovered the truth, her parents were Catholic members of the Belgian resistance who were captured and killed by Nazis. It is one thing to belong to a group targeted for oppression or genocide and something quite different to choose to align yourself with such a group and share its fate. Whatever our beliefs about our own integrity or moral fiber, there are few among us who would make that choice once we have assumed the obligations of parenthood.
Defonseca's parents were among this rarest sort of human. Their daughter paid a horrible price for that choice. (Note: Ms. Hamblin is incorrect about this. According to the article written by Marc Metdapenningen and published in Le Soir, Defonseca's father was a traitor and Gestapo collaborator who died a natural death.)

RAMONA HAMBLIN
Newton

___________________________________________________________

WE AT Wolf Hollow were saddened by the revelation that Misha Defonseca's incredible memoir was an elaborate hoax. Upon meeting her in 1996, we were awed by her story. We were aware of many documented cases of children raised by animals, including chimpanzees, apes, and indeed wolves. Wolves live in packs that mirror our own human families, and are considered the most socially complex nonprimate mammal. In our talks with Defonseca, she demonstrated an intimate knowledge of wolf behavior. Who would not want to believe such a heartwarming story in the midst of one of mankind's darkest times?
We became close friends with Defonseca, subsequently holding book signings and hosting a film crew from "The Oprah Winfrey Show." We spoke of her when visitors to Wolf Hollow would ask of the validity of tales of wolf-raised children, and even named a wolf puppy Misha. Readers can imagine how shocked we are now.
For someone to feel the need to create such a story in lieu of reality is the truly sad story. Despite the deception, the Misha that we knew is a warm woman and an advocate for animals, and we trust that that much is still true.

ZEE SOFFRON
Assistant director Wolf Hollow
Ipswich

________________________________________________________________
AFTER READING this story, I was speechless. I have known Misha Defonseca since 1988, when she and her family moved to Millis, and we became close friends. I truly believed her story, and supported her efforts in writing her memoirs.
One speech she gave stands out in my mind, a night at Brandeis. Several hundred students, faculty, friends, and true Holocaust survivors gathered to hear her story, and many tears were shed as the story unfolded. Holocaust survivors in attendance that evening called out the names of the death camps they were in, and a moment of silence was observed. This experience will live in my memory forever.
I feel so betrayed, yet my heart is broken for the true Holocaust survivors she used to promote her lies. When her book was published, I felt honored that she put my name in it, and now I am ashamed. I want no association with the lies.

PATRICIA CUNNINGHAM
Millis

March 23, 2008 4:47 PM

Genealogist Sharon Sergeant on Her Process

Sharon Sergeant has released the preliminary case study provided to her
research team on January 5, 2008 leading to the February exposure of
Misha Defonseca's true identity and confession in Belgium.

Sergeant says

"For more than a decade, historians had focussed on the implausibility
of the Defonseca popular allegory. We took a page from Pulitizer Prize
historian David Hackett Fischer's early work 'Historians' Fallacies' for
the process of Inquiry, Explanation and Argument and applied it to the
entire body of work created as a result of Defonseca's storytelling: her
public appearances and interviews, various book versions and the many
lawsuits.

We found many problems with previous inquiries. Question framing,
factual verification and significance were definitely lacking.
Explanations were generalized and narrations were all tainted by the
basic inquiry. Cause and effect, motivations, composition of the
information and analogies were all over the board.

Highly charged emotional issues were given undue proportion, distracting
the inquiries from actually testing theories against the facts.

We were thus able to frame the inquiry in the search for the factual
evidence trail by asking "What is wrong with this picture?"

I presented these findings to my team on January 5, 2008.
http://www.generalvoice.com/

Sergeant will also present how her team used this preliminary analysis
to find the proof trail for Misha Defonseca's true identity at the
Massachusetts Genealogical Seminar on April 26th at Bentley College in
Waltham, MA.
http://www.massgencouncil.com/

Thanks and Explanations from Jane Daniel

Publisher, Mt Ivy Press

I’d like thank the thousands of readers of this blog for taking the time to examine the words I have written and the documents I have posted here. Visitors have come from all over the world, from Japan to Australia to Denmark to Thailand and a score of other countries, and many more from Belgium, France and the U.S., and they just keep pouring in.

As many of you know, over the last several days a firestorm has erupted over the confession by Misha Defonseca that her book, MISHA A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, was a hoax. Originally published in the U.S. by my company, Mt Ivy Press, and later to become an international bestseller and the subject of a French movie, the hoax has survived for an astounding two decades.

In the past week, I have been interviewed by the media and contacted informally by people asking for explanations. Several issues in particular get raised over and over, so I’d like to respond to a couple of them here.

The first question goes like this: Why did you publish the book when you knew it was not, or might not be, true? Did you do it because you “smelled the money”?

The second question also revolves around the subject of money, and it goes: When you and your company were sued, the court found that Mt Ivy had hidden money in an offshore account and failed to pay Misha and her ghostwriter, Vera Lee, their royalties. What do you say to that?

The two get lumped together into this notion: Irrespective of what we now know about Misha’s wrongdoing, based on the court’s findings, the publisher must also have done something bad to get hit with a $33 million judgment. In other words, where there’s smoke there’s fire.

I’ll begin with the first question, Why publish when the story might be fake?

Historically, publishers rely on the author’s warranty that all statements of fact are true (see warranty clause from Mt Ivy Press’ publishing agreement on this blog) and by custom there has been little or no obligation on the part of the publisher to vet the manuscript, other than superficially, before publication. There is a good reason for this convention. A publisher may decide to print a book entitled “I Was a Space Alien’s Love Slave”, without a disclaimer as to the tale’s authenticity. Or the book may be more serious, such as “I Was Illegally Targeted by the C.I.A.”, a topic that may be impossible to authenticate if matters of national security are involved.

The publisher tosses a book out into the marketplace and the public is entrusted with the freedom to decide whether to buy it, or to read it, or whether or not to believe it. The system represents the ultimate power to the people and, given the rash of fake autobiographies (such as the whopper told by Margaret “Jones”, published by Penguin) that have recently been exposed, the arrangement works well.

Now, let’s consider the Misha book. According to Slate Magazine, Misha Defonseca had been polishing her invented persona since as early as 1989. At the time I met her in 1994 she had been warmly embraced by the local Jewish community and I, like millions of others to follow, fell under her spell.

Contrary to some people’s assumptions, I did do extensive research in preparing the manuscript for publication as I have earlier recounted on this blog. But, remember, I had no personal information to go on. I had no name, no date or place of birth, no names of anyone who knew the woman who said she had been given a “false” identity when her parents were arrested by the Nazis in 1941. Everyone said there was no way to verify this story. Should that have been a red flag? Not necessarily. My research showed that children who lost their families in war not infrequently lost their identities as well. What if Misha's story of being a "lost child" had been true? Few would suggest that she should have been barred from telling it in print because it could not be verified.

In adopting the persona of an innocent Jewish child, one of the Holocaust’s most heartbreaking victims, Misha had devised a nearly perfect disguise. In her new role as Holocaust survivor, she wrapped herself in a Teflon mantle of moral superiority that few dared to challenge lest they be accused of being anti-Semitic.

How do we know this? Because in Belgium, several who publicly spoke out against her were accused of just that. Serge Aroles, a Belgian surgeon, has divulged that he was so labeled for questioning her account of living with wolves. Le Meuse reported that one of Misha’s childhood friends who tried to alert the media that the story was false was told that she was “jealous” and that she was “playing with fire” for “mocking another person’s misery.” In this country, in more than a decade, only two American journalists publicly questioned Misha’s truthfulness, but neither offered a scrap of concrete evidence to support their views.

In fact, there is a new post on this blog from Marc Metdepenningen, the Belgian journalist who broke the story in Le Soir that Misha’s father, Robert DeWael, was a known traitor to the resistance who sold out his comrades to the Gestapo. This reporter has been subjected to a wave of public hostility, challenging his research and motives, which on March 9 led Le Soir to publish the damning documents that his research unearthed. (See link to Le Soir article on this blog.)

As to why a publisher chooses to publish one particular book or another — of course, we do it based on the expectation that we will make a profit on our choices. A publisher is in business to make money; a publisher is not the gatekeeper of the truth. Does anyone really want to suggest that publishers should decide for us what we should read and what we should believe? The founding fathers placed a high social value on freedom of the press. In light of recent developments, their confidence in the fourth estate appears to have been well founded.

The second question boils down to, “Given the $33 million judgment against them, what did Jane Daniel and Mt Ivy Press do to warrant such an outcome?

The answer is already on this blog. For those of you who have read the entire story so far, that IS what Mt Ivy Press and I DID in the creation of this book, told from the agreed-upon exhibits from the trial. The real question is “What happened AT THE TRIAL to bring about that result?” That’s a long story, enough to fill a book. I will get to it all in due time. The chapters I've posted here end with Mt Ivy's attempts to get Misha to cooperate in appearing on the Oprah show. Here's a hint: There is enough information out there now for readers to figure out why she refused to do Oprah and how this ties in with the hoax.

This much I will tell you now. There was not one penny of money earned by Mt Ivy Press that was not accounted for. Misha herself, and Vera Lee’s lawyer, Frank Frisoli, have made much over the fact that the authors never received royalties. Here is how that happened. When Frank Frisoli, on behalf of his client, Vera Lee, filed a suit against Mt Ivy Press, the complaint included Mt Ivy’s U.S. distributor, Publishers Group West (PGW), and Mt Ivy’s literary agent, Palmer & Dodge, as “reach and apply” defendants. The term reach and apply indicates that these parties were holding money on behalf of Mt Ivy that the plaintiff wanted to claim.

In fact, virtually all of Mt Ivy’s income came through these two sources: book sales in U.S. bookstores from PGW, sales of foreign and subsidiary rights from Palmer & Dodge. Immediately after they were named in the suit, both PGW and Palmer & Dodge dropped their representation of Mt Ivy. Thus, just a year after publication of the book, all of Mt Ivy’s future income was instantly curtailed.

That left whatever was in the pipeline from sales that had already occurred. Mr. Frisoli then filed a motion with the court to have Mt Ivy’s income paid into the court. The motion was granted. But the effect was that the royalties that might have been due Defonseca and Lee were now frozen as well. Both authors filed motions to order Mt Ivy to pay their royalties — which the court denied. So, in fact, the reason they received no royalties was a direct result of actions taken by Vera Lee’s attorney, Frank Frisoli. (The legal proceedings I’ve described here can be found on the docket sheet, MICV 1998-02456, Middlesex Superior Court.)

As for the offshore account, you can read about that in the chapters I’ve already posted here. To summarize: All earnings from the book, including those held in the offshore account, were not only NOT hidden, they were reported in the royalty reports prepared for the authors by Mt Ivy Press in accordance with the publishing agreement.

There was money already in the offshore account when the court order freezing Mt Ivy’s earnings went into effect, but the court refused to order Mt Ivy to pay royalties to Defonseca and Lee. That offshore money ultimately went to pay legal fees. Mt Ivy had no profits whatsoever from this book. Frank Frisoli himself acknowledged at trial that I never took a salary. In fact, I never made a penny. On the contrary, I loaned tens of thousands of dollars to the company to pay legal fees, $17,000 of which I never recovered. My lawyer, Molly Sherden, walked me through all the money issues on the witness stand. In his opening statement Mr. Frisoli advised the jury to “follow the money.” In his closing statement, he dropped this advice.

Offshore entities, by the way, are completely legal and are often used for tax purposes by companies doing business internationally. Like a personal retirement account with taxes deferred until you access the money, a company pays taxes on offshore earnings only when they are brought into the U.S. As for money being “hidden”, no author is entitled to know what bank the publisher keeps its money in. Authors are only entitled to know how much of that money is due them. That’s what appeared in Mt Ivy’s royalty reports.

So how DID the huge judgment come about?

Misha fooled the whole world for twenty years. She needed to fool only twelve jurors and one judge for ten days at trial. A Holocaust survivor has the stature of a secular saint in the public eye, on a par with Mother Theresa. In representing herself as a Jewish Holocaust survivor in court she committed perjury. Misha testified that she was cheated by Mt Ivy, and Vera Lee did the same. In effect, they corroborated each others’ version of the money, as well as other counts in the complaint.

I have heard people say, "Well, the appeals court upheld the judgment so that must mean something fishy happened." That view reflects a misunderstanding of the appeal process. In fact, an appeal is not a process for re-examination of the evidence presented at trial. The basis for an appeal is judicial error only, e.g. Did the trial judge follow the proper procedures and apply the relevant laws correctly? In other words, an appeal is about the trial judge, not the litigants. A trial may have an unjust outcome even when a judge follows all the rules to the letter. The basis for the appeal I filed was narrow and technical: subject matter jurisdiction. My appeal alleged that the judge in state court allowed into the trial matters of copyright law that were the exclusive jurisdiction of federal court.

I have consistently maintained that the evidence did not support the judgment. How can any of the findings from this trial be free from the taint of what we now know is a massive and deliberate fraud? Sunlight is the best disinfectant, admonished Justice Brandeis. There is more to this story than what has come out so far. When all the facts are known, it will become clear that Mt Ivy Press and I did nothing, NOTHING, wrong. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” cuts both ways. Misha threw up a massive smoke screen for two decades, engulfing the trial and the aftermath. Justice was consumed in a blaze of lies.

An interviewer asked me how I felt toward Misha now that she has been exposed. I answered with an expression told to me by one of the investigators in Belgium who helped uncover the evidence: “The day you met Misha was the day you should have fallen and broken your leg when you got out of bed.” I deeply regret whatever part my publishing company and I played, albeit unknowingly, in facilitating Misha’s fraud. It is most unfortunate when an iconic figure abuses the public trust. Truth also has a very high social value.