Laurel Rose Willson - False Identity As A Holocaust Survivor

False Identity As A Holocaust Survivor

After her books were withdrawn from sale by her publisher, Willson legally changed her name to Lauren Stratford. She would later create another false identity in 1999, with an equally horrific story to tell. Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Willson collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors. As Grabowski, Willson befriended Binjamin Wilkomirski, claiming to remember him from the camps. Wilkomirski himself (real name Bruno Grosjean) was later revealed to be neither Jewish nor a Holocaust survivor, aiding in the exposure of Willson as a fraud.

Read more about this topic:  Laurel Rose Willson

Famous quotes containing the words false, identity and/or survivor:

    But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
    Bible: New Testament, Luke 6:24-26.

    The modern world needs people with a complex identity who are intellectually autonomous and prepared to cope with uncertainty; who are able to tolerate ambiguity and not be driven by fear into a rigid, single-solution approach to problems, who are rational, foresightful and who look for facts; who can draw inferences and can control their behavior in the light of foreseen consequences, who are altruistic and enjoy doing for others, and who understand social forces and trends.
    Robert Havighurst (20th century)

    You’re looking, sir, at a very dull survivor of a very gaudy life. Crippled, paralyzed in both legs. Very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it’s hardly worth the name. I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider.
    William Faulkner (1897–1962)