Herman Rosenblat's memoir, "Angel at the Fence," deemed by Winfrey as "the single greatest love story" she's ever featured on her show, may now be coined by some as the single fakest love story, after the author admitted he fabricated the story of how he and his wife met at a Nazi concentration camp.
They did not, as Rosenblat falsely wrote in the book, meet at a concentration camp during World War II, where Rosenblat claimed his wife had thrown him apples and bread over the barbed-wire fence that separated them.
In reality, Rosenblat and his wife, Roma, were set up on a blind date in New York years after the war was over.
In the end I submit to you Oprah is not the loser in this hoax...we the American public are.
You see Oprah, in one of her rare selfless acts, is promoting these books not so much has to hype herself or the authors; as much as it is to hype reading. Wow!, there's a concept, reading books. There are a lot of ways to escape the stress of our real lives; drugs, alcohol and turning family members into punching bag, to name a few. But reading a book is a great alternative to all of these.
The effect this latest hoax has on the publishing world may do a lot of damage. First of all these lies make the publishers look like idiots for not fact checking. Then it makes it harder on new authors to get their books published with thoughts of not telling the truth.
And what about Oprah? Should Oprah get tired of people taking advantage of her and not confessing straight up that their book is a fake, then we will have no more Oprah book club and yet another reason for Americans not to read.
Pix and material from EMILY FRIEDMAN at ABC News.