Herman A. Rosenblat ( 1929 – February 5, 2015) was a Polish-born American author, known for writing a fictitious

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

memoir titled ''

Angel at the Fence ''Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived'', written by Herman Rosenblat, was a fictitious Holocaust memoir purporting to tell the true story of the author's reunion with, and marriage to, a girl who had passed him food through ...

'',Rosenblat, Herman (2009) ''Angel at the Fence'' Berkley Hardcover, purporting to tell the true story of a girl who passed him food through the barbed-wire fence at the Schlieben sub-camp of the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

in World War II. The book was planned to be published in 2009 by Berkley Books, but was cancelled after it turned out that many elements of his memoir were fabricated and some were contrary to verifiable historical facts. Rosenblat later admitted to lying on purpose with the intention of bringing joy. Before the fabrication became public, the film rights to the book were purchased for $25 million by Harris Salomon of Atlantic Overseas Pictures. Other fans of the story include

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', b ...

who has described it as the single greatest love story she heard in over 22 years of hosting her show. The story behind Rosenblat's story is being developed as an independent feature film. In June 2010 Atlantic Overseas Pictures and producer Harris Salomon signed a co-production agreement with Castel Film Studios, a well known studio in Central and Eastern Europe and the studio for '' Cold Mountain'' and ''

Borat ''Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' ( Kazakh / Russian: ''Борат'') (also stylized as ''BORДT'', or simply ''Borat'') is a 2006 mockumentary black comedy film directed by Larry Charle ...

'' as well as 3rd-i films in London, to produce a feature film about the Herman Rosenblat affair based on an original screenplay by award-winning screenwriter Ivo Marloh entitled ''The Apple'', scheduled for production in 2015.

Life

Rosenblat, a

Polish Jew The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...

, lived in the town of

Piotrków Trybunalski Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the second-largest city situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Previously, it was the capita ...

before World War II. Following the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

, the Nazis rounded up his family in 1939 along with thousands of others when the

Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto The Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto ( yi, פּיִעטריקאָװ) was created in Piotrków Trybunalski on , shortly after the 1939 German Invasion of Poland in World War II. It was the first Nazi ghetto in occupied Europe. founded on The town was ...

was set up. His father had previously died of typhus. Two years later, when Rosenblat was 12 years old, his mother was separated from him and put on a

Holocaust train Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' national railway system under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holoc ...

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

during one of the ghetto liquidation actions. About 90% of the inhabitants of the ghetto were sent to Majdanek and Treblinka death camps. He later wrote that he lied to the Germans about his age because the Nazis used older boys for slave labor, and sent younger ones for extermination. In July 1944, with the front lines approaching, he was deported with his three older brothers to Schlieben sub-camp of the

, until February 1945. He claimed in his memoir that his future wife Roma, a nine-year-old Jewish girl hiding in the town of Schlieben with her family, threw him apples and bread over the electrified, guarded fence of the camp on a daily basis throughout the seven months' period. Shortly before liberation he was brought to the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

camp. After being liberated from the concentration camps, Rosenblat and his brothers were brought to the UK in a group of 730 orphans to start a new life. Rosenblat says he lived in London for four years, where he learned the electrical trade at the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training school. He then moved to the United States in 1950 and was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

in 1951. After serving for two years, he says he moved to New York and opened his own TV repair shop in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He met Roma Radzicki in the United States on a blind date in 1957, and married her. He later claimed that during the date he had recognized her as the girl who threw apples to him over the fence and proposed on the spot.Cohen, Zen (December 14, 2008)
Couple's story of love started in time of war
''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami. Rosenblat stated that his mother had appeared to him at the hospital and had told him to tell his story to the world. In 1994 Rosenblat had a

tax lien A tax lien is a lien which is imposed upon a property by law in order to secure the payment of taxes. A tax lien may be imposed for the purpose of collecting delinquent taxes which are owed on real property or personal property, or it may be ...

placed on him by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

for unpaid payroll taxes dating back to 1988, which must have increased the financial pressure on him. According to Holocaust historian

Kenneth Waltzer Kenneth Alan "Kenny" Waltzer (born 1942) is an American historian and educator, formerly director of the Jewish Studies program at Michigan State University (MSU). His research on the Buchenwald concentration camp has focused on the rescue of ch ...

, Rosenblat changed his own story, replacing it with the love story, and then it must have become difficult to turn back. After he had won Oprah's contest of love stories he had to keep lying and live with it. Rosenblat told the apple story for the first time in late 1995, and he won Oprah's contest in 1996. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Rosenblat in two different programs, in 1996 and 2007, and she called his story "the single greatest love story, in 22 years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air."

Berkley Books Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group. History Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berkl ...

, an imprint of the Penguin Group, signed Rosenblat up to publish his memoir ''Angel at the Fence'', with Andrea Hurst working as Rosenblat's literary agent. Producer Harris Salomon, of Atlantic Overseas Pictures, made plans to adapt the story into a $25 million movie called ''The Flower at the Fence'', and he had earlier registered a screenplay based on the story with the Library of Congress in 2003.

Discovery of hoax

Jewish professor

Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books '' Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' (2011), and ...

had already denounced the story in her personal blog in December 2007. Other Holocaust survivors like Peter Kubicek also denounced the implausibility of the story. Jewish-American blogger Danny Bloom started emailing several historians for help, one of them being Holocaust historian

. Waltzer had been interviewing survivors for a new book, and he had been told that the story was probably false. In November 2008 Waltzer contacted

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

genealogist Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...

Sharon Sergeant Sharon Sergeant (born 1947) is an American forensic genealogist who specializes in researching and tracing international fraud cases, property settlements, and provenance of artifact collections. She also conducts biographical research for histori ...

and Colleen Fitzpatrick and started investigating the matter. He found out that the prisoners of that concentration camp were prohibited from approaching a camp's fence on pain of death, nor was anyone allowed to approach a fence from the outside. Such perimeter fences were electrified and watched 24/7 by armed guards stationed on guard towers, ready to shoot anyone who approached the fence from either side. The SS barracks were near to the only fence that faced outwards, and prisoners approaching the barracks would have been executed. Waltzer also discovered that Herman's future wife Roma was never in the town of Schlieben, but that she lived throughout that period in a German farm away, near Breslau. Another survivor of the same camp,

Ben Helfgott Sir Ben Helfgott (born 22 November 1929) is a Polish-born British Holocaust survivor, Olympian and former champion weightlifter. He is one of two Jewish athletes known to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust, along with ...

, told him that Rosenblat had never told the story before the mid-1990s.Caleb Daniloff
Untrue Stories, a genealogist reveals the painful truth about three Holocaust memoirs: they're fiction
Bostonia (Alumni Magazine of Boston University) Waltzer started questioning the publisher and the agent about the authenticity of the story, with little success. Some people actively resisted and tried to shut down his investigation. On December 25 and 26, 2008, several scholars and family members published multiple critical articles in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'', the first article using Waltzer's research, and the second adding their own research on top of Waltzer's. On December 27 Rosenblat finally confessed the truth to the producer of his movie, Harris Solomon, and his literary agent, Andrea Hurst. He stated that the apple-tossing part of his backstory was something he only imagined, while stating that the rest of his Holocaust experiences were accurate, however other falsehoods and discrepancies in his remaining story have been discovered since then.Italie, Hillel (December 28, 2008)
Anger, sadness over fabricated Holocaust story.
''

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

''Barrios, Jennifer (December 28, 2008)
Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat recants story.
''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...

'' Rosenblat has not apologized, and claimed that "It was my imagination, and in my mind, I believed it. Even now, I believe it.", and he also said that he did it to bring happiness and hope to people. His family knew about the hoax and tried to convince Rosenblat not to tell it. This caused a division in Rosenblat's family. His last surviving brother, Sam, had hesitated talking to him and he died in 2007. Herman's two children were very uncomfortable with the matter. Despite not agreeing with Rosenblat, the family never revealed the truth to the media or Rosenblat's publishers or producers. The other orphans from Buchenwald knew that the story was very implausible but decided not to say anything. As time passed, the persons knowing about the hoax grew more uncomfortable about keeping silent about it and there was a growing consensus that the truth had to be told.

Reaction to discovery

On December 27, 2008, the same day of Rosenblat's confession, Berkley Group cancelled the book publication, saying that it had received "new information" from Rosenblat's agent. A spokesman said that they would be asking for the money back that they had advanced, and the company has declined making any more comments on the matter. A children's edition of the book, written by a third party, Laurie Friedman of Miami, titled ''Angel Girl'', had been released in September 2008. When Lerner Books learned that the book was based on Rosenblat's falsehoods they said that they wouldn't make any reprint and that they would refund any returned copy. About 2,000 copies were sold. Producer Harris Salomon wasn't aware of Rosenblat's hoax when he started working on his movie of the Rosenblat story, but still intends to produce it, as he had always planned a "loose and fictionalised adaptation" and "the story retains its power to grip audiences worldwide." He had been working with Rosenblat over a six-year period as the original feature film was being developed. According to Salomon, the script for the feature was completed in October 2009 with casting to commence by Celestia Fox in London. Producers Abi Sirokh, Gabor Koltai, Lew Rywin and Thierry Potok contributed to the project. The new motion picture tells the story of Herman Rosenblat, with a style similar to the movie ''The Insider''. After the revelation of the hoax, the focus of the film was changed to a psychological love story examining why a Holocaust survivor would make up a story about the Holocaust and the love for his wife while driven by greed, fame and the memory of the Holocaust. Salomon has asked Rosenblat to donate all the earnings of the film to Holocaust survivor charities but Rosenblat refused. Oprah posted a disclaimer on her website, and in February 2009 she said that she was "disappointed", but she denied having been duped by Rosenblat and that she was "minding my own business." Gayle King, a friend of Oprah's, pointed out that a lot of other people had also been duped and that she was being scapegoated. In July 2009 a new video was disseminated by the gawker.com web site. Rosenblat is re-enacting his Holocaust love story, specifically the throwing of apples over the perimeter fence of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, long after that part of his story had been discredited as fake. On September 1, 2009, York House Press published a paperback book titled ''The Apple'', written by Penelope Holt. It tells Rosenblat's life story. Peter Kubicek, an outspoken critic of the original book, reportedly advised the author and is thanked in the preface of the book.

Analysis and repercussions

Holocaust historian Kenneth Waltzer said that it was disturbing that so few people had noticed and inquired about the obvious holes in his history over a decade. Waltzer and others have said that Rosenblat didn't need to embellish his story, which was already powerful enough by itself. Waltzer places part of the blame in all those "culture makers" that profited from the diffusion of the story and never doubted even the most implausible parts of it. It appears that the veracity of story was not questioned either by the book publisher or by Oprah Winfrey, and that no fact-checking was done to ensure the authenticity of the memoir prior to endorsing it soundly. Deborah Lipstadt and others have harshly criticized Rosenblat for embellishing his story, since this could cause people to doubt the truth of the Holocaust, and encourage

Holocaust deniers Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...

. According to Fitzpatrick, one of Waltzer's collaborators, such hoaxes could be avoided if the publishers spent a few thousand dollars in early fact-checking with historians and genealogists, before deciding to spend huge sums of money for the story. Among a number of other false elements in Rosenblat's story, he claimed that he was scheduled to be gassed at 10am on May 10, 1945, and that the liberation saved him by just two hours. The war ended officially on May 8, and the entire camp had been handed over to the International Red Cross a week earlier.

had no gas chambers and, as noted by Deborah Lipstadt: "Jewish prisoners were not told ahead of time that they were going to be gassed."Elizabeth Day. The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
/ref>

References

External links