If you’re a hopeless romantic and watch Oprah…you too have been duped.
On Saturday, it was announced that the book documenting the Holocaust survivors Herman Rosenblat and Roma Radzicki love affair has been canceled. Reason given, it was made up. In a nutshell, Herman wove a fantastic tale of love in the time of the Holocaust. He was in a Nazi concentration camp and she, posing as a Christian girl outside of the camp, fed Herman an apple everyday until he was moved. Years later, they met on a blind date, in New York, and realized they had met again. It was fate, and he proposed on the spot.
Years later, they re-tell the story on Oprah Winfrey’s show (who called their love affair “the single greatest love story”), then on to countless magazines and television shows.
Herman has finally admitted that “the single greatest love story” was embellished and the publisher has canceled the book, and asked that Rosenblat return his advance, that was due out in February. A movie of the story is already in the making and the producer has said that he will continue, but it will now be a fictional story. Herman has said that he will donate all earnings, from the movie, to Holocaust survivor charities.
Update – There was also a children’s book published back in September that has now been pulled from bookstores’ shelves and refunds are being offered. This seems to be a bit more far reaching than originally thought.
1 response so far ↓
1 Wendy // Jan 1, 2009 at 9:23 PM
This hoax is a tragedy. The Rosenblats have hurt Jews all over and given support to those who deny the holocaust. I don’t understand why Atlantic Pictures is still proceeding to make a film based on a lie. I also don’t understand how Oprah could have publicized this story, especially after James Frey and given that many bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt said in 2007 that the Rosenblat’s story couldn’t be true.
There are so many other worthwhile projects based on genuine love stories from the Holocaust. My favorite is the one about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt – the beautiful young art student who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children’s barracks at Auschwitz. This painting became the reason Dina and her Mother survived Auschwitz. After the end of the war, Dina applied for an art job in Paris. Unbeknownst to Dina, her interviewer was the lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They fell in love and got married. Now that’s a romantic love story! I also admire Dina for her tremendous courage to paint the mural in the first place. Painting the mural for the children caused her to be taken to Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he made her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.
Also, Dina’s story has been verified as true. Some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. The story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children’s barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also documented.
Why wasn’t the Rosenblatt’s story checked out before it was published and picked up to have the movie made?? I would like to see true and wonderful stories like Dina’s be publicized, not these hoax tales that destroy credibility and trust.
Leave a Comment