The Holocaust fiction book Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years was written by impostor Misha Defonseca, who was born in Belgium. It was first released in 1997 and at the time was presented as a real memoir.
It was translated into 18 different languages and became an instant hit throughout Europe. Learn more about Misha Defonseca salary, age, biography, marital status, occupation, nationality, and ethnicity.
Misha Defonseca: Bio, Age, Nationality, Parents
On May 12, 1937, Misha Defonseca was born in Etterbeek, Belgium. As of 2021, she will be 84 years old. She is a citizen of Belgium and is of mixed heritage. Defonseca was the child of Catholic parents who were persecuted by the Nazis for their involvement in the resistance and afterwards executed, deported, and imprisoned.
When her parents were detained, Monique was sent to live first with her grandparents and then with her uncle. She was labeled the “daughter of the traitor” in the neighborhood because her father was thought to have leaked information to the Nazis while he was incarcerated.
After she was rescued, her father’s name was purged off a stone memorial honoring local Nazi victims workers on the Schaerbeek municipality’s walls.
Quick Facts
| Full Name | Misha Defonseca |
| NickName | Misha |
| Famous as | Author |
| Birth Date | 12 May 1937 |
| Age | 84 years old |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Birth Place | Etterbeek, Belgium |
| Father’s Name | N/A |
| Mother’s Name | N/A |
| Siblings | N/A |
| Height | 5 ft 7 in |
| Weight | 65 kg |
| Body Measurements | N/A |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Ethnicity | Mixed |
| Eye Color | Brown |
| Hair Color | Blonde |
| Education | N/A |
| Spouse | Maurice Defonseca |
| Net Worth | $1.5 million |
Height and Weight
Misha Defonseca has a height of 5 7 inches. She is about 65 kilograms in weight. She has blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes. Regarding her bodily measurements, nothing else is known.
Net worth and Salary
Misha Defonseca, an 84-year-old novelist, is estimated to be worth $1.5 million as of 2022 by Wikipedia, Forbes, IMDb, and other web sources. She earned money writing novels professionally.
Career and Professional Life
Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, written by Misha Defonseca, is a made-up Holocaust memoir that was first released in 1997 under the guise of a real book. It was translated into 18 different languages and became an instant hit throughout Europe.
The French translation of the book was a derivative work based on the original, published in 1997 by Éditions Robert Laffont under the title Survivre Avec Les Loups (Surviving with Wolves); the French film with the same name was adapted from this second edition.
Several reviewers noted logical or historical problems despite the book’s popularity. The first person to openly contest the authenticity of the narrative was Henryk M. Broder, who wrote an article about Defonseca for the German magazine Der Spiegel in 1996.
Jane Daniel posted two documents on her blog in late February 2008: a christening record for a Monique De Wael from a Brussels church and a registration from a neighborhood elementary school showing that Monique enrolled there in September 1943, two years after Misha claimed to have left Brussels.
Le Soir, Belgium’s official daily, swiftly publicized the findings. The story’s historical discrepancies and errors were finally noted by the late Dr. Maxime Steinberg, Belgium’s leading Holocaust historian.
After being presented with “irrefutable” evidence that her claim was false, Defonseca admitted to fabricating the story to Le Soir on February 29, 2008. In a statement posted under her real name, the author said, “The book is a narrative, it’s my tale.” “Though mine, it isn’t the real reality.
There are times when I struggle to distinguish between my inner world and reality. As “the traitor’s daughter,” Defonseca said to Le Soir that she had always tried to conceal her true identity.
The author and her lawyers admitted on February 29, 2008 that the widely read book was fiction despite being labeled as autobiographical. In 2014, a judge mandated that Defonseca pay $22 million back to her publisher.
Relationship Status: Husband?
Who is the husband of Misha Defonseca? Misha and Maurice Defonseca were coworkers at the same company in Brussels when they first met. They are now married.
Maurice has spent his entire career with Honeywell Bull, a computer business. The pair then lived in Paris until departing for America in December 1985. After securing a position with a company in Boston, Massachusetts, Maurice migrated.
Maurice is Defonseca’s second spouse. Morris Levy, a Belgian, was Misha’s previous husband. Morris and Misha are parents to one child.
After she disclosed the existence of the book, Defonseca and her husband kept a low profile, but thanks to a 2014 MassLive article, we now know they were residing in Dudley, Massachusetts. The documentary ends with her and her husband still sharing a home in Massachusetts, according to Newsweek.
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