Yes Oprah is rich and powerful, yes, people hang on her every word…but, with the recent memoir, “Angel at the Fence” written by Herman Rosenblat; some people are looking to point blame at Oprah after finding out that the memoir was based on a falsehood. Come on, don’t blame Oprah!
Look the thing is…Oprah gives her endorsement to books that move her. So what, if this book was written as a work of fiction the story would still be good. The alleged falsehood of how the couple in the book met; upon which the premise of the book was based, is not any reflection on Oprah. Herman was a survivor of a concentration camp. He told a version of meeting his wife as having taken place when the “angel” would bring him apples and bread to the fence of the concentration camp…virtually keeping him alive and helping him to survive the experience.
In truth,what was promoted as a love story extraordinare was a lie; they actually met on a blind date many years after his experiences in the concentration camp. It is a terrible thing to tell everyone a lie about the roots of his marriage; expecting others to perpetuate the myth…just to sell a book. The Rosenblat’s son did not agree with the falsehood and says he didn’t want anything to do with it. But think about this, when people that his family knew learned of the the writing of the book…and were complimentary….how did his parents expect him to act? Was he supposed to swallow the truth and pretend that the story being told was the truth? Or was he to contradict his parents whom I am sure he loves? What a predictament to put your child in!
Even though the beginning of the Rosenblat’s relationship is said to be untrue…Herman’s experiences of survival in the concentration camp would have been a very good memoir; one which would have stood up well enough on it’s own, without the lie. But, the lie is on the author…not on someone who read the book and recommended the book to others not knowing the truth.
So, again I say…don’t blame Oprah for something in which she had no way of knowing was untrue. If anything, it should reflect back on the publishing industry. They are responsible for how they publish and package a book. If they are going to put a description of the book as a memoir…then they have the responsibility of determining whether or not it is in fact a memoir. Still, a memoir is a recollection of how one remembers events from their past…and unless the person in charge of publishing the book was there in the past…there has to be some free benefit of doubt that the author is telling the truth. Ultimately, it is the author of the book that is responsible for whether or not the truth is being published. In this case, no one else carries the weight of the falsehood more than the person who KNOWS IT IS A FALSEHOOD!
The sad thing is that this experience and others like it…only make it tougher for writers to break into an industry that is already famous for being difficult to get published in. Who deserves to lose the loss of respect over this book for an abuse of trust…the publishers, the author, Oprah or the agents , or the publicity people?
Write where you are 
When we were school kids, we used to love to catch our classroom teacher making a mistake. It seems to me that’s the prevailing mentality in this case, too. People clamor for the “perfect” Oprah to choose the “wrong” candidate, “get caught” gaining weight, or “being duped”. Hey, it could happen to anyone, especially when greed and deceit are the guiding forces in opposition!
Why ON EARTH couldn’t the author simply offer this story as a novel? And why did the wife go along with this masquerade? Oh. It was greed and deceit. THEY reigned supreme.
The Rosenblat story is so sad. Why is Atlantic Pictures making a film based on a lie? Why didn’t Oprah check the story out before publicizing it, especially after James Frey and given that many bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt said in 2007 that the Rosenblat’s story couldn’t be true.
Genuine love stories from the Holocaust do exist. 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 to cheer them up. 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. It’s such a romantic love story. Another reason I love Dina’s story is the tremendous courage she had 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.
Dina’s story is also verified to be 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.
Yes Oprah is rich and powerful, yes, people hang on her every word. I just think Oprah people should do a better job, checking things out. If it look like it’s too good to be true, well what else is it to say. People will do anything for money. Yes, the publisher, and the author are also blame too!!! This the second time this have happened to Oprah!!