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Oprah Called It the Greatest Love Story Ever. It Was a Lie.

Horror_Heather

29,761 views

Oprah called it the single greatest love story she had ever heard. It wasn't true.

This is the story of Herman Rosenblat and the WWII-era memoir that fooled everyone.

Educational/journalistic disclaimer: This video is an educational and journalistic analysis of a publicly reported literary fabrication case from the 2000s. It discusses documented claims about a wartime love story that were later found to be invented. The video's purpose is to expose and analyze this fabrication, not to depict, promote, or sensationalize it. All facts presented are drawn from public records and established investigative journalism. No claims are made against any private individual beyond what has been publicly reported and never retracted. This content is comparable to established true-crime and media-literacy journalism covering historical hoaxes.

Timestamps:
00:00 (Intro)
00:38 (Quick Ad for E-WIN Gaming Chairs)
02:26 (The Story Herman Rosenblat told)
03:43 (The Oprah machine)
06:47 (Everything falls apart - the truth is discovered)
10:24 (What was true, and what wasn’t true)
11:59 (Hear his thoughts on the whole situation)
19:06 (My take)
22:17 (Closing and talking about the form to get in contact with me!)

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Resources:
1.https://muse.jhu.edu/document/1514
2. https://45aid.org/camp/schlieben-berga/
3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
4. https://abc30.com/archive/6666467/
5. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050VDBIM?...
6. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/bu...
7.https://statenews.com/article/2009/01...
8. https://variety.com/2006/film/markets...
9. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/ar...
10. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/98788626
11. Interviews & statements from his son: https://abc30.com/archive/6666467/
https://newrepublic.com/article/46758...
12. EXCLUSIVE How Does Herman Rosenblat Feel Now?
13. EXCLUSIVE Herman Rosenblat in Auschwitz Te...
14. EXCLUSIVE Herman Rosenblat On Why People S...
15. EXCLUSIVE Herman Rosenblat interview relea...
16. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/bu...

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Fair Use Disclaimer: I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of issues, criticism, or commentary. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All videos and photos used in this video were originally posted publicly on social media. All commentary in this video is a matter of opinion. All opinions in this video are my own.

20 Comments

@NUFAN1313 2 weeks ago

Why is Oprah ALWAYS at the scene of the crime???

@MrScottbot101 2 weeks ago

Oprah’s here, she’s there, she’s in your kitchen eating your Cheerios and checking the expiration dates on your soup cans…

@GlitterFlame89 2 weeks ago

I have to agree with you, I think the real story might have just been too traumatic and he really wanted to believe the prettier lie. But as you pointed out, that unfortunately does come with real-world consequences, such as giving ammo to Holocaust Deniers.

@smurphy8881 2 weeks ago

The more I hear about her the more I think that Oprah was just Joe Rogan, but for women. The lady seems ready to believe almost anything you put in front of her.

@Sundance694 2 weeks ago

A LOT of what is wrong in our world we have Oprah to blame.
The fact she clearly doesn't fact check her guests makes her completely culpable for the propaganda they spread

@ELIZABETHFenna-c6u 2 weeks ago

my father was a survivor of the camps - he didn't have to invent stories

@viviennenalder3600 2 weeks ago

The logistics of heavily guarded fences is also another reason “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” just doesn’t work! I know BITSP is fiction, but it’s unfortunately continuously used as an accurate teaching tool, when in reality it doesn’t even remotely come close to a good representation of that time and place

@petiteflower5259 2 weeks ago

So many survivors never talked about what really happened to them, too painful to remember. I don't know why he made up the love story but I don't have to wonder why he didn't write his real experience.

@SusanStanley-v9m 2 weeks ago

I think it is something you said, he replaced the painful truth of what he really went through, with something that was easier to live with.

@HuntingViolets 2 weeks ago

Can't Oprah afford private detectives and fact checkers?

@Jesuslovesyou-hc1kl 2 weeks ago

thank you for emphasising multiple times that this guy was at this camp for real. because people hear what they want to hear.

@HKduane 2 weeks ago

Can you do an entire video on Oprah enbabling hoaxes like this and Jason Arday?

@tremorsfan 2 weeks ago

For someone who got her start as a journalist she's not very good at checking facts.

@MrScottbot101 2 weeks ago

Someone surviving the camps is a miracle in and of itself, their story really doesn’t need to be embellished by a hokey love story that didn’t happen.

@thehomeschoolinglibrarian 2 weeks ago

He and his wife may not have thought the true story would get people's attention and they were desperate for money due to what happened to them. Then because he felt guilty he convinced himself it was true. This wasn't done out of malice it was done out of desperation and trauma. His wife may have had a hand in creating the story because they had both suffered trauma both during the genocide of WW2 and then being violently robed.

@PDComicBookNetwork 2 weeks ago

Maybe I'm misjudging the distance or misunderstanding how old they were supposed to have been, but if a small child was standing at that tree, she must have a helluva arm to throw an apple across the road and over the fence.

@KiKi-tf8rv 2 weeks ago

I’ve known people who went through traumatic things that I’ve witnessed and gone through with them. Sometimes they take on the story of another person there, or have false memories of another related story because their pain is too difficult to face. It’s really frustrating for those of us who remember correctly, but also understandable that their minds can’t face reality. It only gets worse as they age, because the longer they’ve conflated memories, the more solidified they become in their minds as facts. It sounds like he was somewhat aware he was doing this, but then went back into the mindset of it being his real, experienced memory.

@creativerealms 2 weeks ago (edited)

Oprah was easily fooled, and in turn fooled others.

@TheSaneHatter 2 weeks ago

I agree that written this story as a work of fiction would have been in better taste, as was the case with a LOT of these false memoirs. But whether it was because of money problems or some kind of trauma-induced delusions or both, Rosenblat seems to have lacked the judgment to make that decision and moreover, never seems to have admitted even to himself that he did anything wrong.