Authenticity

Chapter 2 investigates a case in which large segments of the public praised a deeply suspect act of witnessing without critical scrutiny. Questions of historical authenticity (as well as authorship and authority) attend the rhetorically inventive nature of witnessing in Binjamin Wilkomirski’s fraudulent Holocaust memoir, titled Fragments. The author’s alleged childhood memories during his fictional imprisonment at Auschwitz were hailed as an instant classic in the genre for its apparent historical authenticity, and subsequently lauded with international literary awards, but historians and journalists who eventually questioned its historical accuracy proved, in the end, that the book was fake. The chapter examines why even actual Holocaust survivors celebrated Fragments as an authentic work of testimony insofar as Wilkomirski borrowed and recycled numerous tropes and images characteristic of postwar survivor memoirs, including the ethos of the survivor, fragmented memories, and recollections focused on trauma. Wilkomirski’s book illustrates potential dangers that attend the extensive public receptiveness for commonplace, and oftentimes unquestioned, tropes of authenticity in witnessing.