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Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1997
Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood is a 1995 memoir about the Holocaust. Its author claimed to be Binjamin Wilkomirski, though this was later revealed to be false. The book was exposed as a fabrication by Swiss journalist and writer in August 1998. This disclosure led to intense discussion across German- and English-speaking communities. Critics contended that Fragments lost all literary merit. Swiss historian and anti-Semitism expert Stefan Maechler commented, "Once the professed interrelationship between the first-person narrator, the death-camp story he narrates, and historical reality are proved palpably false, what was a masterpiece becomes kitsch." Maechler 2000, p. 281. The incident gave rise to the term Wilkomirski syndrome for comparable instances of deception.
Crew
- Translator
- Carol Brown Janeway
Details
- Publisher
- Schocken Books
- ISBN
- 9780805210897
