Wael, Monique de

A.K.A. Misha Defonseca

Monique de Wael (born 12 May 1937) is a Belgian Catholic who lost her parents during the Second World War. They had been arrested and deported by the German occupational forces for resistance activities, and never returned home. In 1988, de Wael immigrated to the U.S., where she wrote a book under the pen name Misha Defonseca titled Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years. She claimed that this was her wartime autobiography. The story line has her living with wolves during a part of her journey to Ukraine and back during the war, in a futile search for her deported parents. In 2008, the book was turned into a movie titled Surviving with the Wolves. This attracted the attention of Serge Aroles, a French scientist whose passion is debunking stories of children raised by wolves. Aroles discovered that de Wael lived with her grandparents and attended school during the years she claimed to have travelled through Europe. De Wael eventually admitted the hoax, yet insisted that her story has been my reality. This is yet another case of a false witness. (For details, see A pack of …; Daniel 2008.)