Ah, it was the greatest love story that never really happened. You know, when Oprah gives you her stamp of approval, it is a big, big thing. Even as a mere mortal, I know that Oprah has the power to make you or break you, so why would you jeopardize yourself with a lie?
(This file, by Alan Light, is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)
One might ask that of Herman Rosenblat, the author of the yet to be released book “Angel at the Fence.” In case you haven’t heard, the book was to tell the story of Rosenblat, who was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II and Roma Radzicky, a Jewish girl passing herself off as Christian who lived at a local farm. As the story was told, Radzicky would meet Rosenblat at the barbed wire fence and throw him an apple. This went on for seven months until Rosenblat was sent to another concentration camp.
Then, in 1957, Rosenblat and Radzicky met on a blind date at Coney Island. While they talked, they realized they had already met. The two married and have been married for 50 years. Oprah called it “the single greatest love story, in 22 years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air.” That is a quick pathway to literary success…provided the story is true.
Turns out, this one wasn’t. Holocaust scholars began to question the authenticity of the story’s details. Professor Kenneth Waltzer of Michigan State University pointed out that it was physically impossible for Radzicky to have gotten close enough to Rosenblat to have thrown him anything based on the layout of the concentration camp. He also ascertained that Radzicky was actually at a farm near Breslau, which was 210 miles from where Rosenblat was.
Now, at this point, you might think, “Okay, the jig is up.” Rosenblat is an old guy (79), so maybe his memory just failed or he embellished upon the story (and it did make for a lovely story). But, both he and the publishers Berkley Books continued to insisted the story was true. However, as more and more evidence appeared that the story was fabricated; Berkley Books cancelled publication on December 27, 2008. There is still a film in the works titled Flowers at the Fence.
Oprah has finally spoken about the whole ordeal, saying she’s “very disappointed” by the whole thing. Rosenblat was to appear on the Oprah show a la James Frey (whose “A Million Little Pieces” true story turned out to be pretty embellished), but his lawyers put the kibosh on that. For his part, Rosenblat said “I wanted to bring happiness to people. I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world.” Oprah did point out that even though the story told to her was not true, it was still an incredible story, with the couple having been married 50 years after both survived being imprisoned in concentration camps.
Did you watch Oprah when the story was mentioned? Did you believe it? Even if it isn’t true, should the book be published as fiction because it is such a heartwarming story?