Wilkomirski syndrome

Wilkomirski syndrome is a public phenomenon in which non-Jews present themselves as Jewish Holocaust survivors, or as Jews with a Holocaust trauma in the family. It is considered fraudulent and is particularly common as a form of literary fraud in the Holocaust memoir circuit. The term refers to Munchausen syndrome and is named after Binjamin Wilkomirski, the pseudonym of the author of Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995), a false memoir that first received positive publicity and several awards. The 1998 revelation that the book rested on fabrications set off public discussion in Germany, and in 2001 the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies hosted a conference on it. It is a named social phenomenon, not a diagnosis.