Wilkomirski syndrome

The Wilkomirski syndrome (Wilkomirski-Syndrom) is when non-Jews present as Jewish Holocaust survivors or Jews with a Holocaust trauma in the family. It is named after Binjamin Wilkomirski, the pseudonym used by the author of Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995), a discredited Holocaust memoir which initially received positive publicity and several awards. The 1998 revelation that the book was based on fabrications initiated public discussions in Germany and in 2001 the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien hosted a conference on "Das Wilkomirski-Syndrom". The term is a reference to the Munchausen syndrome.

Daniel Ganzfried, the journalist who broke the story about Wilkomirski, argues that the case should be seen as a product of a larger industry of Holocaust-related material and academic Holocaust studies, where economic incentives lead to the creation of material of little or no value. Later cases that have been discussed in Germany as examples of the Wilkomirski syndrome include Fabian Wolff, Wolfgang Seibert, Peter Loth and Marie Sophie Hingst.