Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation,
by Zoe Vania Waxman. 2006
Reviewed by Jan Peczkis
“Wilkomirski” wrote a memoir, Fragments, in which he claimed to have gone through the Holocaust. It turned out that–not only did he not go through the Holocaust–he was not even Jewish! For an introduction to the Wilkomirski affair, see:
The present work includes some sobering and far-reaching facts. Read on…
WILKOMIRSKI’S FRAUDULENT MEMOIR WAS NAIVELY AND WIDELY ACCEPTED AS FACTUAL
The manner by which Wilkomirski’s Fragments was received does not inspire confidence in the objectivity and scholarly distance of the Holocaust establishment. Waxman comments, “Fragments received a great deal of public commendation; as well as receiving endorsements by prominent survivors, it was translated very quickly into a dozen languages, and was awarded such honors as the Jewish Quarterly Prize in London, the Prix de Memoire de la Shoah in Paris, and the National Jewish Book Award in New York, where finalists included Alfred Kazin and Elie Wiesel. As a child who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and committed himself to helping other child survivors of the camps, Wilkomirski enjoyed a great deal of respect.” (p. 171).
RELUCTANCE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FRAUDULENCE OF “BINJAMIN WILKOMIRSKI”
What is interesting is not so much the fact that the Wilkomirski memoir turned out to be a Holocaust fraud, but the fact that there was a “peer pressure” to avoid the truth. Waxman writes, “Even those who were suspicious of Wilkomirski’s story–who believed that it was unlikely that such a young child could have survived Majdanek–were reluctant to publicly accuse a so-called Holocaust survivor of lying and face the consequences.” (p. 170).
WILKOMIRSKI FRAUD DENIAL. SOME HOLOCAUST FANS PREFER MYTHS TO THE TRUTH
Various readers continued to believe “Wilkomirski” even after the indisputable truth came out. Waxman makes these sobering comments, “It is significant that even after the book was declared fictional, withdrawn from bookshops, and dropped by publishers, it has continued to attract readers eager to believe its veracity. For them, responding to Wilkomirski has become an act of faith. However, the incident raises serious questions regarding the use and accuracy of witness testimonies.” (p. 173). That’s putting it mildly!
Clearly, some people are ready to believe anything, as long as it is about the Holocaust. This, of course, facilitates the dissemination and propagation of anti-Polish tales.
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NAZI GERMANY ALLOWS 200,000 CAPTIVE JEWS TO SURVIVE
Waxman writes, “When the war ended on 8 May 1945, it is estimated that there were around 200,000 Jewish survivors of the forced-labor camps, concentration camps, death camps, and death matches.” (p. 90).
Now, the standard Holocaust supremacist narrative tells us that the Nazis were out to kill every single Jew in Europe. If so, how could they knowingly and deliberately have allowed 200,000 already-captive Jews to live? Shouldn’t the number of Jewish survivors have been much, much smaller, approaching or even reaching zero?
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CENSORSHIP. THE HOLOCAUST ESTABLISHMENT SUPPRESSES UNCONGENIAL INFORMATION
The author describes the Jewish reaction to Hannah Arend’t 1962 classic, Eichmann in Jerusalem, as follows, “It is interesting to note that Arendt’s report was not translated into Hebrew until 2000.” (p. 115). See Arendt’t classic:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/judenrat-big-help-to-germans-arendt/
Shortly after the war, Calel Perechodnik submitted his manuscript (of the eventual Am I a Murderer?) to Yad Vashem and ZIH. The Jewish-unflattering information long delayed its publication, as described by Waxman, “Its controversial nature (in particular, its condemnation of Jewish leaders and institutions) meant that it was not published until 1993; perhaps, in part, due to its differing so greatly from both Ringelblum’s account and the collective response of other ghetto diarists.” (p. 25). See the Perechodnik work:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-self-criticism-candor-perechodnik/
