鐵絲網外的天使

Herman Rosenblat knew how to tell a story. At family occasions， he was the one who would 2)spin fantastic 3)yarns with only 4)a kernel of truth. One of Herman’s favorite stories was about how he met his wife Roma. He would recount the astonishing tale of how， as an 11-year-old Polish Jew 5)interned by the Nazis in a sub-camp of 6)Buchenwald， he was sustained by a young girl who came each day to throw him apples over the fence. He never knew her name. Twelve years later， Rosenblat was living in New York when a friend set him up on a 7)blind date. In an incredible twist of fate， the curly-haired woman with green eyes who was his date for the evening turned out to be his childhood savior， the girl who had thrown him apples all those years before: his “angel at the fence”. He proposed on the spot， against the twinkling lights of the 8)Coney Island amusement parks. They were married in 1958 and had two children.

To begin with， it was an anecdote he shared only with friends or new acquaintances. Then， in 1995， Rosenblat wrote it up and entered a newspaper competition to find the best Valentine’s Day-themed short story. He won and his story was featured on the front page of the 9)New York Post. Within months， the Rosenblats were appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show， sitting hand in hand on a 10)cream sofa， in the full glare of studio lights. In the years that followed， Rosenblat was signed up by a literary agent who 11)brokered a book deal. The Rosenblats began appearing at local schools and Holocaust-education centers， with Herman giving his moving account of how love triumphed over the forces of hatred. He enjoyed the attention. Rosenblat’s memoir， Angel at the Fence， was 12)slated for publication by 13)Berkley Books in 2009. Life was good for the Rosenblats.

There was just one problem—it wasn’t true. Although Rosenblat did survive the Holocaust and his marriage to Roma was genuine， the story of a young girl throwing him apples was a 14)fabrication. His “angel at the fence” was a fake.

Doubts about the Rosenblat memoir started circulating on the Internet and were mentioned by the eminent Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt on her website as early as December 2007. Shortly afterwards， Danny Bloom， a 60-year-old 15)expatriate Jewish American living in Taiwan， picked up on some of the story’s 16)discrepancies and started emailing academic experts asking them to look into the 17)veracity of Rosenblat’s account. One of the academics Bloom emailed was Ken Waltzer， the professor of Jewish studies at 18)Michigan State University. Waltzer， who was writing a book about the children of Buchenwald， had already made his own 19)tentative inquiries into the Rosenblat story.

“In November 2008， I was contacted by two 20)forensic 21)genealogists who were investigating the memoir，” he explains. “They were able to give me maps of the Buchenwald sub-camp in 22)Schlieben. We already knew from survivor testimonies that to go to the fence was punishable by death and there was a high risk you would be 23)electrocuted. The maps showed that the only external fence was down by the 24)SS 25)barracks and that civilians had been banned from the road that ran alongside it since 1943 so there was no way that Herman and Roma could have had a 26)rendezvous.”

Waltzer and his associates then looked into the matter of Roma’s 27)whereabouts during the Second World War. In his story， Herman had claimed that Roma and her family were Polish Jews living under assumed identities on a nearby farm. There was no trace of them. “The 28)upshot of it all was that the family was some distance away in 29)Brieg，” says Waltzer. “The story was completely untrue. If Roma wasn’t there， then she wasn’t throwing him apples. There are no redemptive endings in the Holocaust. In this case， the dark truth was hidden to spin a story of romance， and that， to me， is a denial of the substance of the Holocaust .”

News of the Rosenblat 30)hoax finally broke last December. Berkley Books swiftly dropped plans to publish his memoir. Rosenblat issued a curiously unapologetic statement claiming that his motivation was “to make good in this world”. “I wanted to bring happiness to people， to remind them not to hate， but to love and tolerate all people，” the statement read. “In my dreams， Roma will always throw me an apple， but I now know it is only a dream.”

While Rosenblat’s fabrication expanded around him， his family knew he was lying. Both his children were said to have been deeply uncomfortable with the story and urged their parents to stay out of the media spotlight. Rosenblat’s rapid rise to semi-celebrity also caused an 31)irrevocable32)rift with his last surviving brother， Sam， who died in February 2007， still refusing to speak to him.

Perhaps there is a sense in which Rosenblat’s stories were a survival technique， a means of dissociating himself from the horrific experiences he underwent and of creating a new， happier ending for his own narrative. But when it became clear that Rosenblat’s supposedly harmless anecdotes were spiraling into something more worrying， there was a growing consensus that it was time to speak out. According to Waltzer: “There was a real fear that Herman Rosenblat would be adding a 33)fraudulent written record to Holocaust history. That would 34)discount the quality of other， true memoirs. And that would give further 35)ammunition to Holocaust-deniers. ”

赫爾曼#8226;羅森布拉特很會講故事。在家庭聚會上，他總能給一點小事添油加醋然后編出動人故事。赫爾曼最愛講的故事之一是他和妻子羅瑪的相遇。他會這樣講述那令人驚奇不已的故事:當時，他是個年僅11歲的波蘭猶太男孩，被納粹分子關押在布痕瓦爾德的一個下屬集中營。有個小女孩每天都來看他，并從鐵絲網外扔蘋果給他吃。可他從來不知道她的名字。12年后，羅森布拉特在紐約生活。有一次，一位朋友幫他安排了一次相親。命運就是這么奇妙，那晚和他約會的那個綠眼睛、卷發女子正是他童年時的救星，那個多年前給他扔蘋果的人——他的“鐵絲網外的天使”。在科尼島游樂園閃爍的燈光下，他當場求婚。兩人于1958年結婚，之后有了兩個孩子。

一開始，這只是跟朋友和初相識的人分享的一段軼事。后來在1995年，羅森布拉特把故事寫了下來，參加一份報紙舉辦的以情人節為主題的短篇故事大賽并獲獎。他的這篇文章被刊登在《紐約郵報》的頭版。數月后，羅森布拉特夫婦獲邀參加《奧普拉#8226;溫弗瑞秀》，在演播廳鎂光燈的投射和聚焦中，兩人手拉手坐在米色沙發上接受采訪。之后的幾年里，一家文稿代理商和羅森布拉特簽約，替他談妥了一個出書計劃。羅森布拉特夫婦還開始到當地的學校和多個大屠殺教育中心演講，在那里，赫爾曼感人肺腑地講述愛如何戰勝仇恨。他享受眾人的關注。柏克利出版公司籌劃在2009年出版羅森布拉特的自傳《鐵絲網外的天使》。……