ＵＰＤＡＴＥＤ GUARDIANＵＫFeb. 1, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/cilkas-journey-the-tattooist-of-auschwitz-heather-morris
"The Tattooist of Auschwitz" by Heather Morris has been ''debunked.'' *Now what?* TO #DEBUNK a novel means ''to expose the sham or falseness of a book." https://korgw101.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-tattooist-of-auschwitz-by-heather.html
NOTE: The Auschwitz Memorial was not the first to flag concerns about the novel. Literary sleuth and blogger Dan Bloom first blogged about the untruthfulness of the novel in a September 22 post at
cli-fi-books.blogspot.com
Later on November 8, alerted by Bloom's stready stream of tweets and emails 24/7 sounding the alarm, an editor at the NYTimes bureau in Australia assigned a reporeter to write an article in the New York Times in November and it ran -- by Christine Kenneally -- and pointed out that the number that Morris says was tattooed on Furman was 34902, but that Furman herself testified that her number was 4562.
Blogger Lisa Hill highlighted errors in the novel back June. After being alerted by Bloom in September she refused to print his comments in her comments section and deleted his comments sounding the alarm because she feared reprisals from the publisher and a possible libel suit if she allowed Bloom's comments to appear on her blog ...but she did write this on her blog at the end:
P.S. 22/9/18 -- ''I have been contacted today [September 22] by a journalist [Dan Bloom] in who says he has proof that there are serious doubts about the veracity of this book. I will provide further details about that if and when I can. I cannot print Dan's comments for fear of a libel suit which I cannot afford to chance, so sorry Dan.''
MAJOR UPDATE: How a savvy screenwriter in Australia got an elderly Holocaust survivor to go along with her Hollywoodized story arc
LINK on how Heather Morris gently and quietly groomed and manipulatde Lali to go along with the story she concocted from his rambling memories
Guardian newspaper UK on Dec, 8, 2018 , article by Alison Flood
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/cilkas-journey-the-tattooist-of-auschwitz-heather-morris
IMPORTANT UPDATE: READ THIS FIRST:
NEWS ALERT! "The Australian" Dec. 6 - by Fiona Harari - HEADLINE: " #TheTattooistofAuschwitz is distorting, Holocaust historians say'' https://northwardho.blogspot.com/2018/12/scanned-pages-1-and-2-from-australian.html
*UPDATE...The blog post, ''The Tattooist of Auschwitz' novel faces fuzzy future after reporter's expose', is now published and can be found at
https://blogs.timesofisrael.co
20 readers say their say about controversial Holocaust sexed-up romance novel 'TheTattooistofAuschwitz' -
https://northwardho.blogspot.com/2018/12/some-reader-comments-in-australia-after.html
Update, see article in The Australian titled "Controversy inked indelibly on world war II Holocaust love tale" November 30 issue by Caroline Overington. UPDATE LINK HERE:
Truth or consequences? Controversy indelibly inked on World War II Holocaust love tale
https://northwardho.blogspot.com/2018/11/truth-or-consequences-controversy.html
November 8...The New York Times has published a damning expose of this Holocaust literary hoax with Melbourne reporter Christine Kenneally reporting from Australia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
The book and movie will be cancelled soon. Game over, Heather. See nytimes.com Heather Morris wrote the script for this obviously ''faked'' and manipulated interview with Lale in 2004 as she was creating this literary hoax, some savvy observers say... SOME MEDIA PEOPLE in Australia and USA and UK ARE LOOKING INTO THIS NOW. Meanwhile The Jewish Anti-Defamation Commission in Australia is looking into this literary fakery now, too. Commision Chairman Dvir Abramovich in Sydney says: "The Holocaust in which 6 million Jews and millions of others were systemically murdered, should NOT be the subject for student pranks, Halloween costumes, entertainment or literary hoaxes like "Apples Over the Fence" and other fake memoirs and faked novels."
MEANWHILE ''The Times of Israel'' website has an expose on this book here:
The post, 'Truth behind bestseller Holocaust 'romance novel' called into question by some', is now published and can be found at
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/truth-behind-bestseller-holocaust-romance-novel-called-into-question-by-some/
And this just in: An Australian woman, not Jewish, a friend of mine, just told me when I asked her her POV, she wrote: "I just finished reading that book! I assumed it was all an elaborate fiction, including the accompanying notes. It never occurred to me that it was true.''
QUOTE UNQUOTE: ''Dr Detective is interested in pursuing this, but they need to contact Lale's son Gary Sokolov, 59, in Australia, and ask him if he has for a copy of the application that was provided by his mum Gita to the Claims Conference for Holocaust reparations. Doc D feels if there was no mention that Gita met Lale in the application, then Lale and Gita most probably never met in Auschwitz during the war which many people now already suspect. Most likely they met after the war and married then and Lale then made up his "story, which Heather accepted hook line and sinker. If there is no mention on the application, then more questions can be asked by literary reporters and hoax investigators worldwide. As it is now, it's a ''he'' (Lale) said; ''she'' (Heather) said. Forensics will be key.'' [''The only way this novel and movie project can be ''spotlighted'' is if hoax investigators find out that Gita was nevr an inmate in Auschwitz. If someone can ''prove'' both Lale and Gita were not in Auschwitz at the same time, then it will open this up to being a bogus story.'']
AND THIS JUST IN FROM Doctor DETECTIVE TEAM:
''I checked with the Holocaust Centre in Melbourne. .....No one is disputing the fact that literary license was used
to make the story more colourful, ..... I don't think any book on the Holocaust should resort to literary license
of any kind and that would be a good argument. This paragraph by Heather Morris in her book intro makes it clear:
''95% of it is as it happened, researched and confirmed. What has been fictionalised is where I’ve put Lale and Gita into events where really they weren’t. They weren’t together when the American planes flew over the camps, for example. Lale was on his own at that point. I put him and Gita together for dramatic licence. '' PERHAPS HEATHER ALSO USED POETIC LICENSE TO MAKE UP THE POETIC SCENE WHERE LALE TATTOOS GITA'S ARM WHEN SHE WAS 18 AND THEY FUCKED IN THE NAZI Camp which Hitler's henchmen controlled completely. Even Gary the son says the fucking scene was invented by heather to sex up the novel for romantically inclined female readers.
Dr Detective: ''Somone should contact Gary and Heather and let them know that literary license is unacceptable for many readers and historians, Jewish and Christian, when writing about the Holocaust. If someone can find a historical discrepancy, then there is something that can be pursued. Putting the two together when the U.S. planes flew over ....is putting them into events when they really weren't together is not a big deal...but if finding out that they weren't at Auschwitz at the same time or didn't know each other during their time together in the camps, then there is an issue that could put a cold damper on the movie project just like happened with the cancellation of the Holocaust hoax novel and movie titled "Angel at the Fence" in 2008."
AND:
''The problem is it's a "he-said; she-said" Lale vs Heather, and Lale's dead as is Gita. There has to be something concrete to make the case the book is a literary hoax. The clear way to "out" this would be if someone found his wife Gita was never in Auschwitz at the time Lale was there. Investigaors needs to find something concrete besides one's word against another's?''
"The Tattooist of Auschwitz" -- a novel about the Holocaust written by a sweet and sincere and ''creative'' non-Jewish Australian woman originally from New Zealand named Heather Morris, a screenwriter and a novelist -- has been called "a literary hoax" by Holocaust some education bloggers in Australia and USA, in much the same way that Herman Rosenblat's 2008 Holocaust memoir "Apples Over the Fence" was blessed and championed by Oprah Winfrey 9 times on her show with Herman making 3 appearances himself and then when Gabriel Sherman exposed the memoir as a literay hoax based on a big fat white lie and fib that Herman told on TV show, published in The New Republic magazine and causing the memoir to be cancelled before publication and Herman to admit on TV that he lied for the sake of telling a good story and to try to make sense of his experience in the Holocaust when he was now an old man of 87.
Same with "The Tattooist of Auschwitz." It's a bestseller worldwide, sold 760,000 copies so far, with a movie project optined and maybe in the works for 2025.
However, the book is NOT based on a ''true'' story, as the cover tagline and the PR material from the publisher Echo Press in Australia insist as a PR and marketing strategy . In fact, Morris most likely made up the cockamamie story in the prologue of Lale meeting his future wife when she was 18 and he was a 25 year old Jewish tattooist in a Nazi concentration camp whose job was to tattoo the concentraiton camp NUMBERS on the arms of the inmates. Morris concocted this story, which is not true and has even been denied by Lale's son Gary Sokolov in Australia in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.
SEE BELOW FOR HIS IMPORTANT DENIAL:
So while the novel was written and published with good intentions as part of a worldwide Holocaust education movement among Jews and non-Jews, this particular novel, like Apples Over the Fence, was not based on a true story and contained a huge blooper in the prologue where Morris tells a bit fat white lie which was part of her PR and marketing plan. It worked. The book sold well.
But the book is based on a major lie, white lie, poetic license lie.
It's too late to recall the novel, it is already out in 760,000 copies.
But the movie project, which is being scripted by a Jewish Australian screenwriter named Jacqulin Perske, the movie script could take out the big fat lie in the prologue of the novel since it is certifiably not a true thing as Gary told the Guardian report, also a Jewish reporter name Catherine Montefior.
The movie could tell a true more honest story without going the cockamamie fake story of Lale meeting his future wife when he was tattooing her arm at the age of 18 when she entered the camp. Gary can tell his side of the story someday.
We Holocaust education bloggers around the world, Jewish and non-Jewish, hope that in the memory of his dear departed father Lale Sokolov, z'l, Gary Soklov can find it within his Jewish soul to tell the truth as he did to the Guardian last year and repeat that the prologue of the novel is NOT the way it happened.
Gary? Jacquelin? Heather? It'syour turn now. SPEAK!
LINKS:
Gary speaks via The Australian Guardian in the Books Blog with this headline:
''stealing-moments-stealing-time....-the-love-story-that-started-with-a-tattoo-in-a-death-camp''
https://www.theguardian.com/books/australia-books-blog/2018/feb/16/stealing-moments-stealing-time-the-love-story-that-started-with-a-tattoo-in-a-death-camp
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore: They consummated their relationship, too, in Birkenau ...?
HEATHER MORRIS: ''Yes, they. really. were. intimate. That was something that when Gary, his son, read in the first draft of the screenplay I wrote, he told me it wasn’t true. “You have to take that out.” I looked at Lale and Lale’s head dropped down. I said, “Well Lale, is it true?” He nodded his head and said, “Yes.” “And do you want me to take it out?” And he nodded his head and said, “No.” Gary. just. whacked. his. dad’s. head. over. with. the. script!''
SEE? Even Gary said it wasn't true. He asked that white lie be taken out of her screenplay that later became the novel. Even Heather confesses. It is obvious that she was controlling Lale in a sweet gentle way that was also maniplating him for her own marketing purposes. GARY? Can you speak to this now in 2018?
Herman speaks to USA TV media ABC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0wQHNvpnvY
Exclusive: Holocaust Faker Herman Speaks Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0wQHNvpnvY
Lale speaks in 1 minute video ''scripted interview'' set up by Heather Morris to corroborate her big fate white lie: YOU MUST SEE THIS VIDEO!
https://youtu.be/u_hOwsy4AM8
Guess who wrote this unvetted obituary in 2007 and note the date, ten years before the novel was published, [created to support her literary hoax marketing plan] for Lale Sokolov after his death, none other than perpetrator of the literary hoax Heather Morris: It's unheard of for an author planning a future marketing campaign for an elderly and ill Holocaust survivor to write his obituary in a major newspaper to her support her book in progress! Literary Hoax!
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/10/obituaries.mainsection
Morris wrote in her unvetted fake obit in the Guardian:
Lale Sokolov, who has died aged 90, was a Jewish businessman who survived Auschwitz as the camp tattooist. There, he met his wife Gita, with whom he spent the rest of his life in his Slovakian homeland and later in Australia.
Born and educated in Krompachy, Lale had a natural ability with languages, which took him into the business world and ultimately saved his life. During the early months of the second world war, while managing a department store in Bratislava, he learned that all Jews in Krompachy were to be rounded up in "camps". He offered himself to the local authorities as a young, fit male more suitable for work than his ageing parents, believing this gesture would keep his family safe. The day he was taken from their home was the last time he saw his parents.
Transported in April 1942, in the first transport of Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz, Lale was imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and tattooed with the number 32407. Within weeks he was stricken with typhus, but survived. Shortly afterwards, he was approached by a French prisoner known as Pepan, the tetovierer (tattooist), and asked if he would work with him. Four weeks later Pepan disappeared and Lale was made the tattooist, responsible for the numbering of all prisoners. In July 1942 while tattooing a group of female arrivals, Lale looked into the eyes of a young girl, Gisela (Gita) Furman. With the help of an SS officer called Baretski, the couple began exchanging letters, and on Sundays, the one day prisoners were given to rest, brief, furtive meetings took place.
This next part, get ready, is PURE BULLSHIT and AN AFFRONT TO THE 6 MILLION WHO PERISHED IN THE HOLOCAUST. MORRIS WROTE: ''On many occasions, Lale was required to stand beside Dr Josef Mengele as he selected his victims. Mengele often said to him, "One day, tetovierer, one day I will take you." HOW DOES SHE KNOW THAT? BECAUSE LALE TOLD HER THAT? HE MADE IT UP. SHE MADE IT UP. SEE? THAT IS BIG FAT WHITE LIE IN AN OFFICIAL OBITUARY IN TNE GUARDIAN WHICH NEVER VETTED HER BULLSHIT OBIT.
With money and jewels entrusted to him by prisoners, Lale traded for contraband with local villagers, which he then distributed to the most needy. Eventually, however, he was caught, interrogated and beaten. He witnessed many further atrocities, including a day when all 4,500 Gypsy prisoners were taken to the gas chambers.
Two days before the Russian army advanced on Auschwitz, Gita was taken away and Lale was moved to Mauthausen camp. Eventually, he escaped, swimming the Danube under the crossfire of German and Russian troops, and made his way back to Slovakia. With the war's end, he went searching for Gita, finding her eventually in her home village. The couple married in October 1945 and settled in Bratislava, opening a silk fabric factory.
When the communists nationalised all private business, Lale's factory was taken from him, his assets were confiscated and he was thrown into prison. Through judicial contacts he was freed, but warned that he and Gita should leave Slovakia immediately. Via Paris and Vienna, they travelled to Australia in 1948, where they opened a factory making ladies clothing in Melbourne. Their son Gary was born in 1961. [HE STILL LIVES IN AUSTRALIA age 59.]
Lale was always passionate about sport, and gave large donations to the young athletes who represented Australia at the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, held in Israel. In later years his television remained permanently tuned to sports channels. Asked how he kept such a positive attitude towards life, he replied with his charming smile, "If you woke up and were alive, it was a good day." Gita died in 2003. Lale is survived by Gary.
==========
UPDATE NOTE: an Australian reader of this blog told me today in an email re my post:
================
c
NOTE: The Auschwitz Memorial was not the first to flag concerns about the novel. Literary sleuth and blogger Dan Bloom first blogged about the untruthfulness of the novel in a September 22 post at
cli-fi-books.blogspot.com
Later on November 8, alerted by Bloom's stready stream of tweets and emails sounding the alarm, an article in the New York Times in November ran article by Christine Kenneally that pointed out that the number that Morris says was tattooed on Furman was 34902, but that Furman herself testified that her number was 4562.
Blogger Lisa Hill highlighted errors in the novel back June. After being alerted by Bloom in September she refused to print his comments in her comments section and deleted his comments sounding the alarm but she did write this on her blog at the end:
P.S. 22/9/18 -- ''I have been contacted today [September 22] by a journalist [Dan Bloom] in who says he has proof that there are serious doubts about the veracity of this book. I will provide further details about that if and when I can. I cannot print Dan's comments for fear of a libel suit which I cannot afford to chance, so sorry Dan.''
Guess who wrote this unvetted obituary in 2007 and note the date, ten years before the novel was published, [created to support her literary hoax marketing plan] for Lale Sokolov after his death, none other than perpetrator of the literary hoax Heather Morris: It's unheard of for an author planning a future marketing campaign for an elderly and ill Holocaust survivor to write his obituary in a major newspaper to her support her book in progress! Literary Hoax!
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/10/obituaries.mainsection
Morris wrote in her unvetted fake obit in the Guardian:
Lale Sokolov, who has died aged 90, was a Jewish businessman who survived Auschwitz as the camp tattooist. There, he met his wife Gita, with whom he spent the rest of his life in his Slovakian homeland and later in Australia.
Born and educated in Krompachy, Lale had a natural ability with languages, which took him into the business world and ultimately saved his life. During the early months of the second world war, while managing a department store in Bratislava, he learned that all Jews in Krompachy were to be rounded up in "camps". He offered himself to the local authorities as a young, fit male more suitable for work than his ageing parents, believing this gesture would keep his family safe. The day he was taken from their home was the last time he saw his parents.
Transported in April 1942, in the first transport of Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz, Lale was imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and tattooed with the number 32407. Within weeks he was stricken with typhus, but survived. Shortly afterwards, he was approached by a French prisoner known as Pepan, the tetovierer (tattooist), and asked if he would work with him. Four weeks later Pepan disappeared and Lale was made the tattooist, responsible for the numbering of all prisoners. In July 1942 while tattooing a group of female arrivals, Lale looked into the eyes of a young girl, Gisela (Gita) Furman. With the help of an SS officer called Baretski, the couple began exchanging letters, and on Sundays, the one day prisoners were given to rest, brief, furtive meetings took place.
This next part, get ready, is PURE BULLSHIT and AN AFFRONT TO THE 6 MILLION WHO PERISHED IN THE HOLOCAUST. MORRIS WROTE: ''On many occasions, Lale was required to stand beside Dr Josef Mengele as he selected his victims. Mengele often said to him, "One day, tetovierer, one day I will take you." HOW DOES SHE KNOW THAT? BECAUSE LALE TOLD HER THAT? HE MADE IT UP. SHE MADE IT UP. SEE? THAT IS BIG FAT WHITE LIE IN AN OFFICIAL OBITUARY IN TNE GUARDIAN WHICH NEVER VETTED HER BULLSHIT OBIT.
With money and jewels entrusted to him by prisoners, Lale traded for contraband with local villagers, which he then distributed to the most needy. Eventually, however, he was caught, interrogated and beaten. He witnessed many further atrocities, including a day when all 4,500 Gypsy prisoners were taken to the gas chambers.
Two days before the Russian army advanced on Auschwitz, Gita was taken away and Lale was moved to Mauthausen camp. Eventually, he escaped, swimming the Danube under the crossfire of German and Russian troops, and made his way back to Slovakia. With the war's end, he went searching for Gita, finding her eventually in her home village. The couple married in October 1945 and settled in Bratislava, opening a silk fabric factory.
When the communists nationalised all private business, Lale's factory was taken from him, his assets were confiscated and he was thrown into prison. Through judicial contacts he was freed, but warned that he and Gita should leave Slovakia immediately. Via Paris and Vienna, they travelled to Australia in 1948, where they opened a factory making ladies clothing in Melbourne. Their son Gary was born in 1961. [HE STILL LIVES IN AUSTRALIA age 59.]
Lale was always passionate about sport, and gave large donations to the young athletes who represented Australia at the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, held in Israel. In later years his television remained permanently tuned to sports channels. Asked how he kept such a positive attitude towards life, he replied with his charming smile, "If you woke up and were alive, it was a good day." Gita died in 2003. Lale is survived by Gary.
==========
UPDATE NOTE: an Australian reader of this blog told me today in an email re my post:
Hi Sir,,
I don't really agree with you about this and I suspect the Melbourne Holocaust Centre doesn't either. For obvious reasons, Morris's The Tattooist of Auschwitz has been widely reviewed here in OZ and also covered in discussion pieces, and the general consensus seems to be that it's a good book, both in literary terms and in personal terms as well. Yes, Morris takes a bit of literary licence at times, but that's par for the course in this kind of book and it's also public knowledge here.
But there is no doubt that the book is based on the true story of Lale and Gita Sokolov. And most readers seem to find that story of love under the most difficult of circumstances - love that lasts decades until only death parts them - positively inspiring. The thing you quote shows only that their son Gary didn't believe his parents had sex there and then. But why believe him rather than Lale? Children always find it difficult to imagine their parents as sexual creatures, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. What's so wrong with 'consensual and lustful' sex anyway? Isn't all sex lustful? What matters is that it's consensual. And Lale Sokolov did insist that they had indeed been lovers even in Auschwitz. Like many other people, I find that inspiring.
But keep up the presssure to find out the truth.
Regards,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
In the novel’s key scene, Sokolov first meets Furman when she comes to the front of his line and he must hold her arm and begin her tattoo: 3 then 4 – 9 – 0 – 2. She attempts to speak but he hushes her. Then he looks into her eyes and falls in love. From this key moment, everything follows.
Heather Morris initially wrote the story as a screenplay, but later turned it into a novel.CreditYing Ang for The New York Times
Image
Heather Morris initially wrote the story as a screenplay, but later turned it into a novel.CreditYing Ang for The New York Times
In the Additional Information section Morris writes that 34902 was in fact Furman’s number. But as it turns out, it’s not. In a 1996 interview with the USC Shoah Foundation, Furman said her number was 4562. Other evidence from her own account and from the archives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum supports her claim.
Likewise Furman’s arrival date is said to be April 13, 1942. But it’s not possible for a woman assigned the number 34902 to have arrived at Auschwitz on that date or even in that year. A woman entering Auschwitz at that time would have had a four-digit number.
Much of the interest in, and marketing of, the book focuses on the true story it is based on, yet there is some confusion, too, about which stories in the novel are true and which are not. Morris said that the tattoo scene where Sokolov so momentously saw Furman for the first time really occurred. But interviews with Sokolov and Furman from the 1990s, and with their son Gary recently, provide no support for that claim.
Why was Furman’s number in the novel also included in the book’s fact section? Morris said that Sokolov told her Furman’s number was 34902. But why did she take Sokolov’s word over Furman’s about Furman’s number?
c
NOTE: The Auschwitz Memorial was not the first to flag concerns about the novel. Literary sleuth and blogger Dan Bloom first blogged about the untruthfulness of the novel in a September 22 post at
cli-fi-books.blogspot.com
Later on November 8, alerted by Bloom's stready stream of tweets and emails sounding the alarm, an article in the New York Times in November ran article by Christine Kenneally that pointed out that the number that Morris says was tattooed on Furman was 34902, but that Furman herself testified that her number was 4562.
Blogger Lisa Hill highlighted errors in the novel back June. After being alerted by Bloom in September she refused to print his comments in her comments section and deleted his comments sounding the alarm but she did write this on her blog at the end:
P.S. 22/9/18 -- ''I have been contacted today [September 22] by a journalist [Dan Bloom] in who says he has proof that there are serious doubts about the veracity of this book. I will provide further details about that if and when I can. I cannot print Dan's comments for fear of a libel suit which I cannot afford to chance, so sorry Dan.''
