Oprah Winfrey referred to the tale of Herman and Roma Rosenblat’s romance, which began with Roma tossing apples over the camp fence to a starving Herman in a Nazi concentration camp and resulted in marriage when the two met again, 12 years later, at Coney Island, as “the single greatest love story . . . we’ve ever told on the air.” That may well have been, but Berkley Books has canceled the February publication of “Angel at the Fence” because scholars say details about the romance just don’t add up. Oprah may want to check it twice before interviewing another memoir author. James Frey and his “A Million Little Pieces” also turned out to be largely fictional. Oprah had twice interviewed the couple on her show, and the Rosenblats’ story was the inspiration for a children’s book as well as the basis for a movie scheduled for production in 2009. Mr. Rosenblat was indeed in a concentration camp, but family members began to raise questions.  Scholars also raised questions when they noted that the layout of the concentration camp would have precluded any meeting at a fence. Mr. Rosenblat first told the story in a newspaper contest for the best love story. From there the story made it into “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” the children’s book, and then into a book contract with a $50,000 advance.
Mr. Rosenblat confessed to his publisher that he had concocted most of the tale. The publisher has demandeda return of the advance. Both the literary agent and the ghost writer involved with Mr. Rosenblat’s project had doubts about the story, but felt it had been so public for so long that they assumed it had been vetted. The lessons?
1. Oprah needs some vetters for memoirs.
2. Publishers should be doing some basic fact checks on memoirs.
3. Truth percolates. The simple analysis of the concentration camp layout coupled with the fact that Roma grew up 210 miles away from that camp brought it to the surface.Â
4. Let the story of the Holocaust emerge without embellishment. History, uncut, unedited, and unembellished, is the very best way to tell a tale.  Â
