Author admits Holocaust wolf memoir partly made up

By James Mackenzie

PARIS (Reuters) - The author of a bestselling autobiography that told the story of a young Jewish girl saved by wolves while hiding from the Nazis in wartime Europe has admitted that most of the story was made up.

Misha Defonseca's book "Survivre avec les Loups" is known in English as "Misha, a Memoir of the Holocaust Years" and has just been made into a successful film.

She said she had invented an alternative story to make up for her painful real experiences.

"It's true, I have always recounted to myself a life, another life, a life that cut me off from my family, a life far from the men I hated," she told the daily Le Figaro in an interview published on Friday.

Defonseca's book told the story of a 7-year-old Belgian Jewish girl who journeys across Europe after her parents were arrested by the Nazis during World War Two.

For much of the time she sleeps in forests, fed and protected by wolves, like Rudyard Kipling's character Mowgli in "The Jungle Book."

Doubts over her story emerged recently and she has been involved in a long-running dispute with her publisher over royalties and the marketing of the book.

Defonseca, who said her real name is Monique Dewael, was four years old when her father was arrested by the Nazis in Belgium and she was brought up by relatives.