The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth - Softcover

Maechler, Stefan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330487264 ISBN 13: 9780330487269

Publisher: Picador, 2001

Synopsis

The Wilkomirski Affair 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 t... Full description

About this title

Review:

"[The book] is a model of scrupulous, dispassionate research. Its judgment of the moral and psychological issues raised by this strange case is admirably balanced....Maechler's work reads as compellingly as a detective story."
--Robert Alter, The New Republic, April 30, 2001

Synopsis:

The specially commissioned investigation of Wilkomirski's FRAGMENTS, the invented "memoir" of a childhood in the concentration camps that created international turmoil. In 1996, Wilkomirski's FRAGMENTS was published in the U.K. by Picador. In it he described how as a small child he survived internment in the camps of Majdanak and Birkenau, and eventually was smuggled to Switzerland at the end of the War. The book was hailed by critics, awarded major prizes, compared with the masterpieces of Primo Levi and translated into 9 languages. The charge that these childhood memories were untrue gave rise to the furious controversy that became the Wilkomirski affair. Stefan Maechler, a Swiss historian, has now finally reconstructed the poignant life of Bruno Grosjean and traced how he became Binjamin Wilkomirski. In the course of his in-depth investigations, he uncovered facts that completely refute Wilkomirski's story. This affair has implications far beyond the tragic story of one individual's deluded life. Maechler explores the reception of survivor and eyewitness literature and its implications for our remembrance of the Holocaust.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0330487264
• ISBN 13: 9780330487269
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512