Misha Defonseca Case Analysis | Fake Holocaust Survivor

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of misha defonsica misha was the subject of a documentary released on netflix titled misha and the wolves just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel consider supporting me on patreon and check out my podcast on youtube bella grande media i will put the relevant links for those items in the description for this video so first i'll look at the background in this case and i'll move to my analysis misha defonsica was born in ederbeek belgium in 1937. her name at that time was monique de waal her family was roman catholic during world war ii nazi germany occupied belgium a resistance was formed in belgium to help disrupt the germans and obtain information about troop movements strength equipment anything that could be helpful to the allies misha's father was part of this resistance but evidently he was not good at keeping a low profile for example he would brag about having access to secret documents he was arrested and tortured in prison he made a deal with the germans in exchange for identifying other members of the resistance his wife would be protected and he could see misha one last time as it turns out after betraying members of the resistance the germans betrayed him ultimately he and his wife would be murdered in the community where he lived misha's father was not too popular misha was known as the daughter of the traitor after the allies liberated belgium misha's father's name was removed from a stone plaque that honored employees of the local government who died during world war ii misha was sent to live with her grandparents and later her uncle at some point misha married a man named maurice he was her second husband in 1985 they moved to united states after her husband was offered a job in the boston area the couple purchased a house in millis massachusetts misha became active in the local jewish community even though again she had been raised catholic she started telling people about this incredible story of survival which involved a number of fabricated elements misha's story went something like this her family was jewish her parents went missing when she was six years old presumably they were arrested by the nazis she lived with a catholic couple who kept her safe from the nazis but they really didn't like her at age seven she started walking east to get to germany believing she could locate her parents and they could be reunited she only had a compass a knife and some supplies during her journey she mostly lived in the forest eating bugs to survive she became friends with a pack of wolves they protected and fed her she had to act submissive in order to be accepted by the wolves according to her story she lived with the wolves on two separate occasions at one point she used her knife to kill a german soldier after he attacked and murdered a woman misha made it to the warsaw ghetto and was able to sneak in and out several times she traveled through countries like poland ukraine and italy before making her way back to belgium at the end of the war when she was 11 years old misha recounted her story at a synagogue in massachusetts either in 1989 or 1990 a local book publisher named jane daniel was interested in publishing a book about misha's story of survival jane's publication company was small she was the only person who worked there after a couple years misha agreed to allow jane to publish the book now books like this are often written by a ghostwriter so the person with the story provides the information to the ghostwriter and the ghostwriter organizes it and creates a cogent narrative the ghostwriter for this book was a woman named vera lee the book started doing reasonably well it was attracting some attention oprah winfrey was interested in having misha on the show which represented a massive opportunity for misha when oprah promoted a book it would sell millions of copies no matter how good or bad it was many books promoted by oprah of course were known to be quite terrible it's almost like oprah never really read them before promoting them the show sent out a production team and recorded misha interacting with some wolves that were in captivity ultimately according to jane daniel misha was uncooperative with the people at the oprah winfrey show she was combative on the phone with a producer and she wasn't happy with her travel arrangements to chicago misha jane daniel and vera lee became involved in a legal dispute regarding the profits from the sale of the book the book wasn't selling too well in the u.s but it was overseas there seemed to be some disagreement as to where the overseas money was going vera lee actually made the first filing she sued jane daniel for a breach of contract in 1998. initially lee blamed both jane and misha but eventually misha was able to align with lee against jane so it was misha defonsica and vera lee against jane daniel the publisher in 2001 as the lawsuit was going on misha and her husband filed for bankruptcy the bankruptcy never went through in the four years prior they had deposited about 243 000 in their accounts so they wouldn't be eligible for bankruptcy the couple had been borrowing money and accepting gifts from neighbors to try to stay afloat financially at least that's what they told the neighbors the couple sold their house and millis and moved into someone else's house they were letting them live there it was a charitable action the same year jane daniel lost a lawsuit she was ordered to pay misha 7.5 million dollars and vera lee 3.3 million dollars in 2002 the judge increased the award now it was 22.5 million dollars to misha and 9.9 million dollars to vera lee no money changed hands to that time due to an appeal by jane daniel misha and her husband paid cash for a 190 000 home in dudley massachusetts in 2003 the judgment a lawsuit would be finalized in 2005 when jane daniel lost her appeal jane didn't have a sufficient amount of money to cover the order a settlement was negotiated misha would find another publisher who would take over marketing the book misha traveled all over europe giving interviews she was a celebrity the book was even made into a french movie as all this was going on some people who read the book noticed that misha's story seemed a bit far-fetched and was inconsistent with historical records it would appear as though many people didn't want to say anything they did not want to challenge someone with such a terrible story they didn't want to be the person who would call misha's credibility into question however eventually some people did the first article doubting misha's narrative came out in 1996 it was in a german newspaper interestingly this was before her book was published with jane daniel jane apparently knew about the newspaper article but disregarded the warning jane had sent the manuscript to various academics and historians she was told that the story was a fantasy yet she continued to move forward with the publication after the lawsuit jane uncovered some information which called misha's account into question for example jane found a bank slip which was hand written by misha containing misha's date of birth place of birth and mother's maiden name misha had told jane on a prior occasion this information was lost misha's date of birth on that document was recorded as may 12 1937. misha had told everyone she was born in 1934. jane also discovered that in the french version of the book misha used a different last name than she used in other versions in february of 2008 historical records were uncovered which revealed that in 1937 misha was baptized under the name monique de wall in brussels belgium and in 1943 was registered for an elementary school near her parents home there are a few problems here according to misha she was jewish not catholic and had left brussels in 1941. one of misha's relatives was interviewed she revealed the story about misha's father being considered a traitor after the hoax was discovered misha admitted that she had made up the story in 2014 misha was ordered to pay back the money she received in a lawsuit against jane daniel now moving to my analysis in an attempt to defend herself after admitting that she made up the story misha defonsica had this to say ever since i can remember i felt jewish there are times when i find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world the story in the book is mine it is not the actual reality it is my reality my way of surviving i asked for forgiveness all i ever wanted was to exercise my suffering why would somebody do something like this there are several reasons and a combination of them may have been at work let's take a look at the reasons first reason selecting something like the holocaust as the context to support a fabricated narrative means that the individual will not be scrutinized carefully it is a sensitive subject matter nobody wants to challenge someone who says they've experienced something that horrible it's a story that will garner a lot of sympathy the second reason there was a lot of chaos during the holocaust buildings were destroyed records were destroyed many potential witnesses to any fraudulent story were murdered there was a lot of traveling people leaving their homes and moving to other places there were people who were hiding people were deliberately changing their identities so that they could survive the environment made it difficult to verify any one particular account there was a lot going on there are many stories that have never been told misha was just trying to sneak in her story among all this confusion sliding one card into a very large deck of cards third reason many stories from that time were the subjects of articles books and movies there was a lot of material available about the topic even though there is no substitute for first-hand experience a person can get some idea of what it might have been like for someone trying to survive during that time not necessarily the emotional component because again that has to be experienced firsthand to truly understand it but the logistics the names of towns the progress of historical events what happened on certain dates things like that would be available it was easy to take all that information and fabricate a convincing narrative fourth reason for a person in a situation like misha a person who had experienced a genuine and tremendous loss there may be a desire to convert one story of suffering into something that would attract more sympathy misha's story did involve suffering but people didn't feel sorry for her because of what her father had done a person in this position may seek a story that would resonate with a lot of people and in theory be more powerful one that would make them look more like a victim perhaps they wanted their pain to count they're suffering to mean something they know that they would have to package their narrative in a very sympathetic way to achieve the goal if their suffering was real why couldn't they have real sympathy this is what they might be thinking it may seem quite unfair to a person in those circumstances to be cheated out of sympathy based on the behavior of another person looking specifically at misha how is she able to get away with her deception here again we see a number of factors coming together she told her story with a lot of passion and charisma she was quite convincing she offered a lot of details including names and places there was no financial motive at first that would come along later with the book and as i mentioned nobody wanted to challenge the inconsistencies in her story nobody wanted to challenge the inconsistencies in her story and there appeared to be a number of people she encountered who were very interested in making money off of her story and not really worry too much about its veracity so what lessons can be learned in this case i think that one of the lessons learned from this story is that sympathy and attention are very attractive for some people so much so that it doesn't matter if they are being received for a legitimate reason it doesn't matter if they're telling the truth they want the recognition they must have it they will do whatever it takes to get it even when they get caught in a series of lies they will make up a reason why their lies are okay why their behavior was justified how their lies are not truly wrong or even really lies at all they're more like distortions or interpretations it's their version of what happened it's a tale that they're weaving that's kind of based on reality therefore people really shouldn't worry about whether they're being honest or not another lesson is how eager and willing people are to believe this story i think people wanted to believe it they wanted to know about this woman who survived this terrifying journey who connected with nature in a special way who overcame terrible odds it was an inspiring story they were willing to ignore obvious problems with the story that were apparent even before the inconsistencies about birth dates and school registration came to light like it didn't strike anyone as unusual that misha was saying she was protected and cared for by a pack of wolves on two occasions it would be much more likely that the wolves would have considered her dinner rather than a member of the wolf pack something else people were okay with the idea of a seven-year-old killing a soldier with a knife this made sense to them this didn't seem a little far-fetched perhaps some people didn't understand the dynamics of wolf packs or knife combat but why did they believe that she was able to get in and out of the warsaw ghetto several times undetected i feel like part of the problem here is that people just didn't attempt to learn about the different facets of her story they didn't understand the historical context and really how reality works the last lesson here people need to believe evidence not stories challenging stories is the only way that real survivors can be honored there is a risk in just believing anything that anyone ever says it seems like this would be fairly obvious that people lie and it can be dangerous to believe that if one identifies a topic that will cause people to automatically believe a story related to that subject matter they have also discovered a topic that will attract deception and fraud there have been a few people that have fabricated survivor stories it's human nature it's the path of least resistance people who lie whether their deceptive behavior is pathological or not want to get the most mileage from their deception those are my thoughts in the case of misha defonsica please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

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Id: MD19qP7xOBo

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021