The author of the best-selling Holocaust memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, confessed that she is not Jewish and the whole story was actually a hoax, according to a story in today's Boston Globe. Published in 1997, Misha is about a young Jewish girl from Brussels who walked alone across Nazi-occupied Europe searching for her deported parents during World War II. Now, 11 years after publishing her memoir and almost two decades after first sharing her story publicly, author Misha Defonseca has admitted that she is actually Monique De Wael, the orphaned daughter of two Catholic members of the Belgian resistance. Yesterday, she released a statement to the Brussels newspaper, Le Soir (article in French). In it she said "the story of Misha is not actual reality, but was my reality, my way of surviving."

Why did it take so long for this bogus memoir to be uncovered? While many authors and Holocaust experts had reportedly challenged the memoir's authenticity, pointing out historical discrepancies and inconsistencies in the tale, no one ever focused on actually proving the story false. That is until genealogist Sharon Sergeant stumbled across the Bestseller! blog of American publisher Jane Daniel. To help Jane prove Misha's story false, Sharon scoured several different versions of the book (it had been published in 18 different languages, and made into a feature film in France) for clues to the author's real identity, focusing on important details such as the name Monique De Wael mentioned only in the American edition and a date of birth (12 May 1937), found in the U.K. edition. With these and other information gleaned from the books, Sharon contacted researchers in Belgium who were able to locate a baptismal certificate from a Brussels church for a Monique De Wael, born to Robert De Wael and Josephine Donvil on 12 May, 1937. This and other located records, along with family photos have been published on the Bestseller! blog.

While the story of another faked Holocaust memoir is sad, I really enjoyed following Sharon's research and methodology. It offers a great example of what genealogy research is all about. For example, one of the biggest red flags for Sharon was the fact that photos published in the original American edition of Misha had been removed in most European editions. To evaluate these she enlisted the help of several photo experts to create a photo timeline, which helped to disprove Misha's reported age of 8 and connect family members through visual clues. When she learned that Belgium restricts access to all vital records from 100 years, she turned to expert researchers there who helped her to uncover the baptismal record, as well as school records. Sharon talked a little about her research methodology in DearMYRTLE's Family History Hour Podcast last week. She also outlined much of her research on the Association of Professional Genealogist's mailing list (APG-L). There is also a good outline summary of her work posted on "Too Many Questions," on Kathleen Valentine's Parlez Moi Blog. Sharon's work on the Misha case provides an excellent example of the tenacity and creativity required by sound genealogical research. Great work Sharon!