Misha and the Wolves is a documentary film which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2021. In August 2021, it was released on Netflix.
This film is about the Holocaust which happened during World War II. It is also about fact and fiction. About what is true and what is false.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer and director: Sam Hobkinson
** Run time: 90 minutes
Misha Defonseca was born in Belgium in 1937. In 1941, during the war, her parents were arrested and deported. They did not survive the war, but Misha did.
After the war, she lived in France. When she grew up, she married a Frenchman named Maurice. In 1988, Misha and her husband moved to the USA. They settled down in the town of Millis in the state of Massachusetts.
When people asked her where she was from, she said she was born in a Jewish family in Belgium. Her parents had been arrested and deported during the war, but she herself had survived the Holocaust.
One day, she was invited to tell the story of her life to the congregation of a synagogue in Massachusetts.
She accepted the invitation. When she told her story, she offered many details about what happened to her during World War II.
** Her parents were arrested, deported and murdered by the Nazis, because they were members of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of Belgium.
** When this happened, she was all alone, but she had escaped from the city. She went into a forest where she survived, because of a miracle.
** She was adopted by a pack of wolves. This was how she managed to get through the war.
Jane Daniel, the owner of a small local publishing company, was intrigued by her account. She invited Misha to write her story down. If she could do this, Jane said she was going to publish her story as a book.
Misha accepted the invitation. But she was not able to write a book by herself. She worked with a ghostwriter. Misha and the ghostwriter produced a manuscript which was published in 1997:
Surviving with Wolves
The book became a bestseller. Not only in the USA but in many other countries. It was translated into 18 languages. The book made a lot of money.
After a while, Misha began to claim that Jane was keeping the profits to herself. She decided to sue Jane, claiming that Jane had not paid her what she had to pay her according to the contract.
When the case was tried in a court of law, Misha won and Jane lost.
Apparently, the profits were more than 33 million dollars. Misha’s share of this was more than 22 million dollars. The court ordered Jane to pay this amount to Misha.
Now Jane’s publishing house was in trouble. The history of a bestseller had turned into a nightmare.
While the legal battle was going on, some people were beginning to ask questions about the book.
Was it really true?
Some details seemed to be logically impossible, while other details seemed to be historically impossible.
A detailed investigation was undertaken. Evidence was discovered. The veracity of Misha’s account began collapse like a house of cards.
In February 2008, Misha finally admitted the hard truth. The story in the book was not real. It was just a fantasy. She had invented this story in order to feel good about herself.
She apologized. She explained that she had trouble separating fact from fiction.
The story of how the hoax happened and how it was eventually exposed is told in great detail in the documentary film Misha and the Wolves.
In this film, we learn the truth about Misha Defonseca:
# 1. She was not Jewish at all. She was born and raised in a Catholic family. Her real name is Monique De Wael.
# 2. Her parents were not members of the resistance.
On the contrary, her father had revealed the names of some resistance members to the Nazis. Misha had been known as the daughter of a traitor.
# 3. She did not live a in forest during the war. There was no miracle. She was never adopted by a pack of wolves. She had survived the war because she was staying with a relative.
# 4. But she did not like the truth. In order to escape the truth, she had created a different version of her life which was not only interesting, but also fascinating and impressive.
The only problem was the fact that it was not true at all. It was simply a product of her vivid imagination.
When the truth was revealed. The verdict of the court case was reversed. Now Misha was ordered to return the money Jane had paid her.
Several persons are interviewed in the film.
Here are the names of the participants:
The first group
** Jane Daniel – publisher
** Emma De Wael – Misha’s aunt
** Pat Cunningham = Misha’s neighbour in Millis, Massachusetts
** Deborah Dwork – professor of history, Clark University
** Ramona Hamblin – Misha’s attorney
** Marie-Claire Mommer – a psychology instructor
The second group
** Evelyn Haendel – a holocaust survivor
** Candy O’Terry – WMJX Magic 106.7 in Boston – host of a weekly series about exceptional women
** Sharon Sergeant – a forensic genealogist
** Karen Schulman – a former friend of Misha in Millis, Massachusetts
** Jean Philippe Tondeur – a military historian
** Marc Metdepenningen – a Belgian journalist
What do reviewers say about this film?
Here are some results:
63 percent = Meta
67 percent = IMDb
73 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
86 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
As you can see, the ratings are quite good. But if ask me, they are not good enough.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
Associated Press
“Belgian author of Holocaust survival story admits it’s a fake,”
NBC News
01 March 2008
Caleb Daniloff
“Untrue Stories: A genealogist reveals the painful truth about three Holocaust memoirs: they're fiction,”
Bostonia
Summer 2009
Alison Flood
“Author of fake Holocaust memoir ordered to pay $22.5m to publisher,”
The Guardian
12 May 2014
Molly Mitchell
“Misha and the Wolves,”
Newsweek
11 August 2021
Alexandra Simon
“What Misha and the Wolves didn’t tell you,”
Grunge
13 August 2021
Nick Chen
“Misha and the Wolves. Hoax Holocaust survival tale that deceived the world,”
Dazed Digital
03 September 2021
*****
Surviving With Wolves
By Misha Defonseca
(1997)
*****
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