The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth

By Stefan Maechler

Book Overview

This is the definitive report on Fragments, Binjamin Wilkomirski's invented "memoir" of a childhood spent in concentration camps, which created international turmoil.

In 1995 Fragments, a memoir by a Swiss musician named Binjamin Wilkomirski, was published in Germany. Hailed by critics, who compared it with the masterpieces of Primo Levi and Anne Frank, the book received major prizes and was translated into nine languages. The English-language edition was published by Schocken in 1996. In Fragments, Wilkomirski described in heart-wrenching detail how as a small child he survived internment in Majdanek and Birkenau and was eventually smuggled into Switzerland at the war's end.

But three years after the book was first published, articles began to appear that questioned its authenticity and the author's claim that he was a Holocaust survivor. Stefan Maechler, a Swiss historian and expert on anti-Semitism and Switzerland's treatment of refugees during and after World War II, was commissioned on behalf of the publishers of Fragments to conduct a full investigation into Wilkomirski's life. Maechler was given unrestricted access to hundreds of government and personal documents, interviewed eyewitnesses and family members in seven countries, and discovered facts that completely refute Wilkomirski's book.

The Maechler report has implications far beyond the tragic story of one individual's deluded life. It explores our feelings about survivor literature and the impact these works can have on our remembrance of the Holocaust.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805211357
• ISBN13: 9780805211351
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Investigative journalism at its best

This is a clear and thorough an expose of the fraud perpetrated by Bruno Grosjean Dossekker, who falsely claimed, in Fragments, to be one Binjamin Wilkomirski, a child survivor of the Holocaust. Stefan Maechler proves beyond any doubt that Wilkomirski is no such person and that Fragments is a fiction.The author pursued every possible lead. He compared each minute detail in Dossekker's narration of "events" with historical records from such leading Holocaust scholars as Raul Hilberg and Lawrence Langer, accounts of other child survivors, interviews with members of the Dossekker and Grosjean families and more. The most damning evidence Maechler unearthed is the fact that in 1981, Dossekker/Wilkomirski contested the will of Yvonne Grosjean, whom, in a letter to officials in Bern Siwtzerland, he called "my birth mother." Dossekker/Wilkomirski received a third of her estate. Other damning evidence includes Dossekker/Wilkomirski's use of Laura Grabowski to "corroborate" his story. Grabowski claims to have known him in a children's home in Krakow. In fact, Grabowski is an American citizen of Christian faith who has since her youth fabricated stories about her victimhood, the most well-publicized being a book called Satan's Underground. The Social Security number of said Lauren Stratford is the same as that of Grabowski, who subsequently used it to make a false survivor's claim. Furthermore, Satan's Underground and Dossekker/Wilkomirski's book contain startling similarities.The one problem with Maechler's work concerns his questions about how such a fraud could be perpetrated. He concludes that the volume of Holocaust material made the fraud possible. Unfortunately, this amounts to blaming the victim. There is something tawdry in blaming the commemoration and documentation of the worst crime in history for the appearance of a single fraud, or two. Holocaust historians must guard against even the unintentional falsification of the record. But documenting the history is not a problem. The problem is that any evil of the Holocaust's enormity ever needed to be documented. Alyssa A. Lappen

An excellent book!

This is the account of the real life detective work carried by the swiss historian Stefan Maechler about the authenticity of Fragments, the (as it turned out, invented) childhood memoirs of a swiss musician claiming to be a survivor of the Nazi's concentration camps. The "memoirs", which constituted a literary event in Europe and the US in 1995 and brought its author fame and recognition, were first accused of being false three years later, and this report, based on interviews and official documents, definitely settles the matter. But on top of this, it is also a really delight to read. It is organized in roughly three parts: a first one where the history of Wilkomirski (real name: Grosjean) early years is presented, together with Wilkomirski own version, and the events leading to the writting and publishing of Fragments, its reception, and its denunciation as fraud. A second one describing the author's historical research. And a third part with a very perceptive and fair analysis of the whole affair. A discussion of important issues related with the instrumentalization of the Holocaust, and references to recent works about this matter (Cole, Novick, etc) ends the book. A serious book on a real life event that can be read and enjoyed as an excellent detective novel, with not a few surprising discoveries in the end. This english translation of the german original Der Fall Wilkomirski also includes, after the main text, a complete text of Fragments.