Author of fake Holocaust memoir ordered to repay US$22.5m to publisher
Judge orders writer to repay cash to publisher after it is revealed she made up bestselling tale of being raised by wolves after escaping Nazis
The author of a fake memoir about how she fled the Holocaust as a child and was raised by wolves during the second world war has been ordered to pay back US$22.5m to her publisher.
The book describes how, when she was six, the author's Jewish parents were taken from their home in Belgium by the Nazis. It tells how she set off across Belgium, Germany and Poland to find them on foot, living on stolen scraps of food until she was adopted by a pack of wolves.
She also claimed she shot a Nazi soldier in self-defence.
The story was a bestseller and was made into a film in France, but in 2008 it was found to be fabricated.
The author - whose real name was found to be Monique De Wael - said that "it's not the true reality, but it is my reality".
One part of the story was true - as a young girl, she lost her parents. Both were members of the Resistance and were deported and killed. But she was raised by relatives, not wolves. Nor is she Jewish, it was discovered.