Another Holocaust memoir proves false

A few of the Jewish lists I belong to are a buzz with the news about yet another fraudulent holocaust memoir being found out. Jews are pretty forgiving about folks who write memoirs of the Shoah. A few factual or timeline inaccuracies are quietly tucked back as being par for the PTSD course, as it were. By and large, memoirs aren't challenged for historical accuracies, of course. There's something vaguely anti-Semetic about those who do, especially the Holocaust deniers. And so, these books are rarely fact checked even as the Red Cross is under increasing pressure to release the Holocaust archives they are still holding tightly to (making this kind of research even harder). In fact, once an author is targeted for fact checking, the publisher and agent are quick to identify these acts as anti-Semetic and anti-Holocaust rhetoric. When these books are fact checked, the reviewer is often scrutinized far greater than the author - see criticism about "Night" by Eli Wiesel for more on this. The only fact checkers who are allowed to criticize these books are Jewish survivors, themselves, or their families left behind (such is the case with the book "Misha", the family's survivors are quick to point out the author usurped their family name and history). Genealogists and historians have become the heroes in this endeavor, thankfully, no matter what their backgrounds are.

The main issue seems to center upon the number of these being written by gentiles claiming to be Jews. Which somehow makes it all that much worse, frankly. If a catholic, gypsy or homosexual is writing about the horrors of their experience with the Nazis - welcome all to Hell's bandwagon and all that. By all means, Jews were not the only victims by any stretch of the imagination. We're often the only ones talked about, but a trip to the Holocaust Museum will educate even the most naive.

So why all these gentiles in Jewish clothing books? There's a lot of psychology floating about to explain this. Identifying with the horror of the Holocaust, malingering of their own situations, the very understandable PTSD making decisions and creating justifications for what was done. The cynical may claim that a Jewish Holocaust story has a greater audience than a catholic one, especially with the very complicated role the catholic church held during WWII. At the end of the day, the explanation seems far more complicated than greed, over-whelming empathy or delusion. And the horrible decision to publish as non-fiction when a book is clearly fiction taints everyone involved.