PW: Your book A Life in Pieces is a wonderful mixture of personal memoir, historical investigation and cultural criticism. Was this your original plan? In fact, you didn't even know if Binjamin Wilkomirski, author of the putative Holocaust memoir Fragments, would cooperate with you when you began this project.
BE: When I started writing, I didn't know who Binjamin Wilkomirski would turn out to be, and didn't know whether he would cooperate with me. I also started working on it at a time before there was much media interested in his story. When I began, I intended it to be personal and investigative; critical elements grew as the story developed in the press. Of course, in the beginning, he did cooperate with me, but this was before he was publicly accused of being a fraud. Later, he was less cooperative.
PW: How did the rest of your family feel about the book? Were they angry when he turned out not to be a relative?
BE: One thing to keep in mind is that Binjamin functioned as a cipher. People filled in the blanks with their own ideas—as I did. I suspected we might find that he wasn't a relative, but family members had different reactions. Some were angry as more and more information indicated that he was not who he said he was. When I went to Los Angeles, I met with a cousin who, even with this information, still left open the possibility that he was connected to our family. I think that people do want a family, and that that need is very strong, particularly for those who have been affected by the Holocaust.
PW: Books such as Fragments and Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years by Monique Defonseca, whose authenticity has also been challenged, have been cited by Holocaust deniers. In fact, one of the first people to spot the problems with Fragments was a prominent Australian denier. How damaging do you think this is for Holocaust historians?
BE: I think that getting all of the information out is never damaging to the writing of history. That the Australian Holocaust denier made several quite sharp observations means that the people who published Fragments did not do their job, or, at the very least, made serious mistakes. There is enough information to show that the book isn't true, but Holocaust deniers extrapolate in absurd ways and are never searching for a more reliable version of the truth. Whatever faults are present in Fragments in no way lends credence to deniers. In the end, it is better that Fragments be exposed than simply sit on library shelves unquestioned.
PW:A Life in Pieces raises profound and disturbing questions not only about how we write history, but how we conceptualize an individual's relationship to it.
BE: I think I have always read with a healthy skepticism, and I read now with a healthier skepticism. I remember a few years ago, there was a news story about a young boy from El Salvador who took a bus to the U.S. to find his father, and it ended with their joyous reunion. The first reports did not seem right to me, and in subsequent days the story turned out to be false. On the one hand, I am happy that I am a more careful reader. But on the other hand, I am saddened, because you want to believe what you read. There is a great pleasure people get in a story they trust is true. I don't always find that pleasure as much as I would have before. That is a loss, but an understandable one.
