Binjamin Wilkomirski

Binjamin Wilkomirski was a name Bruno Grosjean / Dössekker (born 1941) adopted in his constructed identity as a Holocaust survivor.

In 1995 Binjamin Wilkomirski, professional clarinetist and instrument maker living in the German speaking part of Switzerland, published a memoir entitled "Bruchstücke. Aus einer Kindheit 1939–1948 (Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1939-1948)". In it he described what he claimed were his experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust. Wilkomirski relates his fractured memories of World War II in a simple language, mainly written from the point of view of an overwhelmed, very young Jewish child. He recounts as the first clear memories of his life how in Riga, Latvia, a man was crushed by uniformed men against the wall of a house. Maybe this was his father – the storyteller is seemingly too young for a more precise recollection (he never mentions his year of birth in the book). After this, Binjamin and his brothers hid out in a farmhouse in Poland. Then was he arrested and interned in two Nazi concentration camps, in one of which he met his dying mother for the last time. After his liberation from the death camps he was brought to an orphanage in Krakow and, finally, to Switzerland where he lived for decades before he was able to reconstruct his fragmented past.

First publication

First published in German in 1995 by the "Jüdischer Verlag" (part of the highly respected "Suhrkamp Verlag"), "Bruchstücke" was soon translated into nine languages; an English translation with the title "Fragments" appeared in 1996, published by "Schocken". The book earned widespread critical admiration – but nowhere was it as enthusiastic as in Switzerland and in the English speaking countries. Some critics even compared the author to Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi or Anne Frank. He was invited to participate in radio and television programs as a witness and expert, and was interviewed and videotaped by the most reputable archives. In addition, he received three important awards. His book sold well, but it was, in contradiction to common belief, not a bestseller. (Maechler, 2001a, pp. 111–128; Oels, 2004, pp. 376–9) In his oral statements he elaborated on many aspects which remained unclear or unexplained in his writing. He mentioned for example the names of concentration camps in which he claimed to have been interned (Majdanek and Auschwitz), and went on to claim that he had been the victim of unbearable medical experiments. (Maechler, 2001a, pp. 22–83) The book won several awards, including the National Jewish Book Award in the United States, the Prix Memoire de la Shoah in France, and the "Jewish Quarterly" literary prize in Britain. [ [http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990419/peskin Holocaust Denial: A Sequel ] ]

Ganzfried's report

This success made the public shock all the greater, when a Swiss journalist and writer in the summer of 1998 questioned the veracity of "Fragments": in August 1998 Daniel Ganzfried, himself the son of a Holocaust survivor, wrote an article in the Swiss newsweekly "Weltwoche" where he argued convincingly that Wilkomirski knew the concentration camps “only as a tourist”, and that, far from being born in Latvia, he came from Biel in Switzerland. Moreover, he was actually a certain Bruno Grosjean, an illegitimate child of an unmarried mother named Yvonne Grosjean. The boy was sent to an orphanage in Adelboden, Switzerland, from which he was taken in by the Dössekkers, a wealthy and childless couple in Zurich, who finally adopted him.

Wilkomirski became a cause célèbre in the English-speaking world, appearing for example on "60 Minutes", in Granta, "The New Yorker", and the BBC. Wilkomirski himself insisted he was an authentic Holocaust survivor who had been secretly switched as a young boy with Bruno Grosjean upon his arrival in Switzerland. His supporters condemned Ganzfried, who, however, presented more evidence. The beleaguered Wilkomirski could not verify his claims, but Ganzfried too was unable to prove his arguments conclusively. (Maechler, 2001a, pp. 129–164; Eskin, 2002, pp. 104–153)

Exposure

In April 1999, Wilkomirski's literary agency commissioned the Zurich historian Stefan Maechler to investigate the accusations. In fall 1999, the historian presented his findings to his client and to the nine publishers of "Fragments": Ganzfried’s charges were completely true; the alleged autobiography contradicted all essential historical facts. Amongst other things, Maechler revealed that a Holocaust survivor named Laura Grabowski whom Wilkomirski had claimed to know from his internment in the camps was a fraud. The false survivor Grabowski had previously used the name Lauren Stratford to write about alleged satanic ritual abuse, a story which itself had been debunked nearly a decade earlier. In addition, Maechler described in detail how Grosjean-Wilkomirski had developed his fictional life story step by step and over decades. Most fascinating was Maechler’s discovery that Wilkomirski’s alleged experiences in German-occupied Poland closely corresponded with real events of his factual childhood in Switzerland: Apparently, the author rewrote and reframed his own experience in a complex manner in the collective terms of a Holocaust child survivor autobiography. It remained unclear how consciously he did this. But Maechler was very skeptical that Wilkomirski was a “cold, calculating crook”, as Ganzfried assumed. (Maechler, 2001b, pp. 67–9)

Maechler’s first report was published in German in March 2000; the English edition appeared one year later (Maechler, 2001a), and included the original English translation of "Fragments" which had been withdrawn by the publisher after Maechler’s report in fall 1999. Subsequently, the historian published two essays with additional findings and analysis (Maechler, 2001b, 2002), whereas Ganzfried (2002) published his own controversial version of the case (s. Oels, 2004; Maechler, 2002). The journalist Blake Eskin (2002) covered the affair as well. Eskin’s interest in Wilkomirski had its origins in genealogy: his family had ancestors in Riga, and, initially, they believed that the author of "Fragments" could perhaps be a long-lost relative. In the same year the public prosecutor of the canton of Zurich announced that she found no evidence of criminal fraud. She added that a DNA test she had ordered had confirmed that Wilkomirski and Grosjean were the same person. ("Neue Zürcher Zeitung", December 13, 2002)

Aftermath

The Wilkomirski case was heatedly debated in Germany and in Switzerland as a textbook example of the contemporary treatment of the Holocaust and of all the perils of using it for one’s own causes. However, the affair transcends the specific context of the Holocaust. Wilkomirski’s case raises questions about the literary genre of autobiography, the aesthetics of a literary work’s reception, oral history, memory research, trauma therapies etc.Fact|date=March 2008

Books

* Blake Eskin: "A Life in Pieces: The Making and Unmaking of Binjamin Wilkomirski", New York and London: Norton, 2002, ISBN 0-393-04871-3
* Daniel Ganzfried: "Die Holocaust-Travestie. Erzählung." In: Sebastian Hefti (ed.): "... alias Wilkomirski. Die Holocaust-Travestie." Jüdische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 2002, pp. 17–154, ISBN 3-934658-29-6
* Stefan Maechler (2001a): "The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth", Translated from the German by John E. Woods. Including the text of Fragments, New York: Schocken Books, ISBN 0-8052-1135-7
* Stefan Maechler (2001b): "Wilkomirski the Victim. Individual Remembering as Social Interaction and Public Event." In: "History & Memory", vol. 13, no. 2, fall / winter 2001, pp. 59–95
* Stefan Maechler: "Aufregung um Wilkomirski. Genese eines Skandals und seine Bedeutung". In: Diekmann / Schoeps (eds.): Das "Wilkomirski-Syndrom. Eingebildete Erinnerungen oder Von der Sehnsucht, Opfer zu sein." Pendo: Zurich and Munich 2002, ISBN 3-85842-472-2.), pp. 86–131
* David Oels: A" real-life Grimm’s fairy tale. Korrekturen, Nachträge, Ergänzungen zum Fall Wilkomirski". In: "Zeitschrift für Germanistik, N.F". 14 (2004) vol. 2, pp. 373-390
* Binjamin Wilkomirski: "Fragments. Memories of a Childhood, 1939–1948". Translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway. New York: Schocken Books, 1996

References

External links

* [http://www.othervoices.org/2.1/salecl/wilkomirski.html Why One Would Pretend to be a Victim of the Holocaust: The Wilkomirski Memoir] by Renata Salecl published in "Other Voices", v.1 n.3, 2000.