Holocaust Hoax

Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years by Misha Defonseca

Reminiscent of the Oprah controversy about A Million Little Pieces but way, and I mean WAY, worse.

I completely understand freedom of speech and expression and agree with it wholeheartedly. However, I don't think anyone should take a very tragic historical event, fictionalize it, and then call it "true." If she wrote this book as fiction based on what she imagined could happen to a child living during this time, that would be totally different. But to embellish the events and call it a memoir is deceitful and misleading. What about the people who truly suffered? It somehow makes light of the real survivors situations.

Playing the devil's advocate though, I wasn't nearly so hard on James Frey and actually thought Oprah went a little too far in persecuting him for his "memoir" of a drug addiction. I think maybe it's the circumstance that causes the strong emotion. While horrible, a drug addiction is more of a personal journey in my mind so an embellished memoir is par for the course. But the holocaust? Those are facts, terrible facts, about the genocide of a whole group of people. Embellishing upon that seems immoral to me.

It would be interesting to hear Oprah's take on this one...