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My Double Life by Sarah Bernhardt

S >> Sarah Bernhardt >> My Double Life




Consequently, I paid no attention to Hortense Damain's counsels, nor yet
to Jarrett's; and in this I made a great mistake, for many people were
vexed with me (in any other country I should have made enemies). On that
first visit to London what a quantity of letters of invitation I
received to which I never replied! How many charming women called upon
me and I never returned their calls. Then, too, how many times accepted
invitations to dinner and never went after all, nor did I even send a
line of excuse. It is perfectly odious, I know; and yet I always accept
with pleasure and intend to go, but when the day comes I am tired
perhaps, or want to have a quiet time, or to be free from any
obligation, and when I am obliged to decide one way or another, the time
has gone by and it is too late to send word and too late to go. And so I
stay at home, dissatisfied with myself, with every one else and with
everything.




XXVII


LONDON LIFE--MY FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE GAIETY THEATRE


Hospitality is a quality made up of primitive taste and antique
grandeur. The English are, in my opinion, the most hospitable people on
earth, and they are hospitable simply and munificently. When an
Englishman has opened his door to you he never closes it again. He
excuses your faults and accepts your peculiarities. It is thanks to this
broadness of ideas that I have been for twenty-five years the beloved
and pampered artiste.

I was delighted with my first _soiree_ in London, and I returned home
very gay and very much "anglomaniaised." I found some of my friends
there--Parisians who had just arrived--and they were furious. My
enthusiasm exasperated them, and we sat up arguing until two in the
morning.

The next day I went to Rotten Row. It was glorious weather, and all Hyde
Park seemed to be strewn with enormous bouquets. There were the
flower-beds wonderfully arranged by the gardeners; then there were the
clusters of sunshades, blue, pink, red, white, or yellow, which
sheltered the light hats covered with flowers under which shone the
pretty faces of children and women. Along the riding path there was an
exciting gallop of graceful thoroughbreds bearing along some hundreds of
horsewomen, slender, supple, and courageous; then there were men and
children, the latter mounted on big Irish ponies. There were other
children, too, galloping along on Scotch ponies with long, shaggy manes,
the children's hair and the manes of the horses streaming in the wind of
their own speed.

The carriage road between the riding-track and the foot passengers was
filled with dog-carts, open carriages of various kinds, mail-coaches,
and very smart cabs. There were powdered footmen, horses decorated with
flowers, sportsmen driving, ladies, too, driving admirable horses. All
this elegance, this essence of luxury, and this joy of life brought back
to my memory the vision of our Bois de Boulogne, so elegant and so
animated a few years before, when Napoleon III. used to drive through on
his _daumont_, nonchalant and smiling. Ah, how beautiful it was in those
days--our Bois de Boulogne, with the officers caracoling in the Avenue
des Acacias, admired by our beautiful society women!

The joy of life was everywhere--the love of love enveloping life with an
infinite charm. I closed my eyes, and I felt a pang at my heart as the
awful recollections of 1870 crowded to my brain. He was dead, our gentle
Emperor, with his shrewd smile. Dead, vanquished by the sword, betrayed
by fortune, crushed with grief.

The thread of life in Paris had been taken up again in all its
intenseness, but the life of elegance, of charm, and of luxury was still
shrouded in crape. Scarcely eight years had passed since the war had
struck down our soldiers, ruined our hopes, and tarnished our glory.
Three Presidents had already succeeded each other. That wretched little
Thiers, with his perverse _bourgeois_ soul, had worn his teeth out with
nibbling at every kind of Government--royalty under Louis Philippe,
Empire under Napoleon III., and the executive power of the French
Republic. He had never even thought of lifting our beloved Paris up
again, bowed down as she was under the weight of so many ruins. He had
been succeeded by MacMahon, a good, brave man, but a cipher. Grevy had
succeeded the Marshal, but he was miserly, and considered all outlay
unnecessary for himself, for other people, and for the country. And so
Paris remained sad, nursing the leprosy that the Commune had
communicated to her by the kiss of its fires. And our delightful Bois de
Boulogne still bore the traces of the injuries that the national defence
had inflicted on her. The Avenue des Acacias was deserted.

I opened my eyes again. They were filled with tears, and through their
mist I caught a glimpse once more of the triumphant vitality which
surrounded me.

I wanted to return home at once, for I was acting that night for the
first time, and I felt rather wretched and despairing. There were
several persons awaiting me at my house in Chester Square, but I did not
want to see any one. I took a cup of tea and went to the Gaiety Theatre,
where we were to face the English public for the first time. I knew
already that I had been elected the favourite, and the idea of this
chilled me with terror, for I am what is known as a _traqueuse_. I am
subject to the _trac_ or stage fright, and I have it terribly. When I
first appeared on the stage I was timid, but I never had this _trac_. I
used to turn as red as a poppy when I happened to meet the eye of some
spectator. I was ashamed of talking so loud before so many silent
people. That was the effect of my cloistered life, but I had no feeling
of fear. The first time I ever had the real sensation of _trac_ or stage
fright was in the month of January 1869, at the seventh or perhaps the
eighth performance of _Le Passant_. The success of this little
masterpiece had been enormous, and my interpretation of the part of
Zanetto had delighted the public, and particularly the students. When I
went on the stage that day I was suddenly applauded by the whole house.
I turned towards the Imperial box, thinking that the Emperor had just
entered. But no; the box was empty, and I realised then that all the
bravos were for me. I was seized with a fit of nervous trembling, and my
eyes smarted with tears that I had to keep back. Agar and I had five
curtain calls, and on leaving the theatre the students ranged on each
side gave me three cheers. On reaching home I flung myself into the arms
of my blind grandmother, who was then living with me.

"What's the matter with you, my dear?" she asked.

"It's all over with me, grandmother," I said. "They want to make a
'star' of me, and I haven't talent enough for that. You'll see they'll
drag me down and finish me off with all their bravos."

My grandmother took my head in her hands, and I met the vacant look in
her large light eyes fixed on me.

"You told me, my child, that you wanted to be the first in your
profession, and when the opportunity comes to you, why, you are
frightened. It seems to me that you are a very bad soldier."

I drove back my tears, and declared that I would bear up courageously
against this success which had come to interfere with my tranquillity,
my heedlessness, and my "don't care-ism." But from that time forth fear
took possession of me, and stage fright martyrised me.

It was under these conditions that I prepared for the second act of
_Phedre,_ in which I was to appear for the first time before the English
public. Three times over I put rouge on my cheeks, blackened my eyes,
and three times over I took it all off again with a sponge. I thought I
looked ugly, and it seemed to me I was thinner than ever and not so
tall. I closed my eyes to listen to my voice. My special pitch is "_le
bal,_" which I pronounce low down with the open _a, "le baaal_" or take
high by dwelling on the _l--"le balll._" Ah, but there was no doubt
about it; my "_le bal_" neither sounded high nor low, my voice was
hoarse in the low notes and not clear in the soprano. I cried with rage,
and just then I was informed that the second act of _Phedre_ was about
to commence. This drove me wild. I had not my veil on, nor my rings, and
my cameo belt was not fastened.

I began to murmur:

"_Le voici! Vers mon coeur tout mon sang se retire.
J'oublie en le voyant...._"

That word "_j'oublie_" struck me with a new idea. What if I did forget
the words I had to say? Why, yes. What was it I had to say? I did not
know--I could not remember. What was I to say after "_en le voyant_"?

No one answered me. Every one was alarmed at my nervous state. I heard
Got mumble, "She's going mad!"

Mlle. Thenard, who was playing Oenone, my old nurse, said to me, "Calm
yourself. All the English have gone to Paris; there's no one in the
house but Belgians."

This foolishly comic speech turned my thoughts in another direction.

"How stupid you are!" I said. "You know how frightened I was at
Brussels!"

"Oh, all for nothing," she answered calmly. "There were only English
people in the theatre that day."

I had to go on the stage at once, and I could not even answer her, but
she had changed the current of my ideas. I still had stage fright, but
not the fright that paralyses, only the kind that drives one wild. This
is bad enough, but it is preferable to the other sort. It makes one do
too much, but at any rate one does something.

The whole house had applauded my arrival on the stage for a few seconds,
and as I bent my head in acknowledgment I said within myself,
"Yes--yes--you shall see. I'm going to give you my very blood--my life
itself--my soul."

When I began my part, as I had lost my self-possession, I started on
rather too high a note, and when once in full swing I could not get
lower again--I simply could not stop. I suffered, I wept, I implored, I
cried out; and it was all real. My suffering was horrible; my tears were
flowing, scorching and bitter. I implored Hippolyte for the love which
was killing me, and my arms stretched out to Mounet-Sully were the arms
of Phedre writhing in the cruel longing for his embrace. The inspiration
had come.

When the curtain fell Mounet-Sully lifted me up inanimate and carried me
to my dressing-room.

The public, unaware of what was happening, wanted me to appear again and
bow. I too wanted to return and thank the public for its attention, its
kindliness, and its emotion. I returned. The following is what John
Murray said in the _Gaulois_ of June 5, 1879:

"When, recalled with loud cries, Mlle. Bernhardt appeared, exhausted by
her efforts and supported by Mounet-Sully, she received an ovation which
I think is unique in the annals of the theatre in England."

The following morning the _Daily Telegraph_ terminated its admirable
criticism with these lines:

"Clearly Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt exerted every nerve and fibre, and her
passion grew with the excitement of the spectators, for when, after a
recall that could not be resisted, the curtain drew up, M. Mounet-Sully
was seen supporting the exhausted figure of the actress, who had won her
triumph only after tremendous physical exertion--and triumph it was,
however short and sudden."

The _Standard_ finished its article with these words: "The subdued
passion, repressed for a time, until at length it burst its bonds, and
the despairing, heart-broken woman is revealed to Hippolyte, was shown
with so vivid a reality that a scene of enthusiasm such as is rarely
witnessed in a theatre followed the fall of the curtain. Mlle. Sarah
Bernhardt in the few minutes she was upon the stage (and coming on, it
must be remembered, to plunge into the middle of a stirring tragedy) yet
contrived to make an impression which will not soon be effaced from
those who were present."

The _Morning Post _said:

"Very brief are the words spoken before Phedre rushes into the room to
commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear
and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her passion
mastered what remained of modesty or reserve in her nature, the woman
sprang forward and recoiled again, with the movements of a panther,
striving, as it seemed, to tear from her bosom the heart which stifled
her with its unholy longings, until in the end, when, terrified at the
horror her breathings have provoked in Hippolyte, she strove to pull his
sword from its sheath and plunge it in her own breast, she fell back in
complete and absolute collapse. This exhibition, marvellous in beauty of
pose, in febrile force, in intensity, and in purity of delivery, is the
more remarkable as the passion had to be reached, so to speak, at a
bound, no performance of the first act having roused the actress to the
requisite heat. It proved Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt worthy of her
reputation, and shows what may be expected from her by the public which
has eagerly expected her coming."

This London first night was decisive for my future.




XXVIII


MY PERFORMANCES IN LONDON--MY EXHIBITION--MY WILD ANIMALS--TROUBLE WITH
THE COMEDIE FRANCAISE


My intense desire to win over the English public had caused me to
overtax my strength. I had done my utmost at the first performance, and
had not spared myself in the least. The consequence was in the night I
vomited blood in such an alarming way that a messenger was despatched to
the French Embassy in search of a physician. Dr. Vintras, who was at the
head of the French Hospital in London, found me lying on my bed,
exhausted and looking more dead than alive. He was afraid that I should
not recover, and requested that my family be sent for. I made a gesture
with my hand to the effect that it was not necessary. As I could not
speak, I wrote down with a pencil, "Send for Dr. Parrot."

Dr. Vintras remained with me part of the night, putting crushed ice
between my lips every five minutes. At length towards five in the
morning the blood vomiting ceased, and, thanks to a potion that the
doctor gave me, I fell asleep.

We were to play _L'Etrangere_ that night at the Gaiety, and, as my
_role_ was not a very fatiguing one, I wanted to perform my part
_quand-meme_.

Dr. Parrot arrived by the four o'clock boat, and refused categorically
to give his consent. He had attended me from my childhood. I really felt
much better, and the feverishness had left me. I wanted to get up, but
to this Dr. Parrot objected.

Presently Dr. Vintras and Mr. Mayer, the impresario of the Comedie
Francaise, were announced. Mr. Hollingshead. the director of the Gaiety
Theatre, was waiting in a carriage at the door to know whether I was
going to play in _L'Etrangere_, the piece announced on the bills. I
asked Dr. Parrot to rejoin Dr. Vintras in the drawing-room, and I gave
instructions for Mr. Mayer to be introduced into my room.

"I feel much better," I said to him very quickly. "I'm very weak still,
but I will play. Hush!--don't say a word here. Tell Hollingshead, and
wait for me in the smoking-room, but don't let any one else know."

I then got up and dressed very quickly. My maid helped me, and as she
had guessed what my plan was, she was highly amused.

Wrapped in my cloak, with a lace fichu over my head, I joined Mayer in
the smoking-room, and then we both got into his hansom.

"Come to me in an hour's time," I said in a low voice to my maid.

"Where are you going?" asked Mayer, perfectly stupefied.

"To the theatre! Quick--quick!" I answered.

The cab started, and I then explained to him that if I had stayed at
home, neither Dr. Parrot nor Dr. Vintras would have allowed me to
perform.

"The die is cast now," I added, "and we shall see what happens."

When once I was at the theatre I took refuge in the manager's private
office, in order to avoid Dr. Parrot's anger. I was very fond of him,
and I knew how wrongly I was acting with regard to him, considering the
inconvenience to which he had put himself in making the journey
specially for me in response to my summons. I knew, though, how
impossible it would have been to have made him understand that I felt
really better, and that in risking my life I was really only risking
what was my own to dispose of as I pleased.

Half an hour later my maid joined me. She brought with her a letter from
Dr. Parrot, full of gentle reproaches and furious advice, finishing with
a prescription in case of a relapse. He was leaving an hour later, and
would not even come and shake hands with me. I felt quite sure, though,
that we should make it all up again on my return. I then began to
prepare for my _role_ in _L'Etrangere_. While dressing I fainted three
times, but I was determined to play _quand-meme_.

The opium that I had taken in my potion made my head rather heavy. I
arrived on the stage in a semi-conscious state, delighted with the
applause I received. I walked along as though I were in a dream, and
could scarcely distinguish my surroundings. The house itself I only saw
through a luminous mist. My feet glided along without any effort on the
carpet, and my voice sounded to me far away, very far away. I was in
that delicious stupor that one experiences after chloroform, morphine,
opium, or hasheesh.

The first act went off very well, but in the third act, just when I was
about to tell the Duchesse de Septmonts (Croizette) all the troubles
that I, Mrs. Clarkson, had gone through during my life, just as I should
have commenced my interminable story, I could not remember anything.
Croizette murmured my first phrase for me, but I could only see her lips
move without hearing a word. I then said quite calmly:

"The reason I sent for you here, Madame, is because I wanted to tell you
my reasons for acting as I have done. I have thought it over and have
decided not to tell you them to-day."

Sophie Croizette gazed at me with a terrified look in her eyes. She then
rose and left the stage, her lips trembling, and her eyes fixed on me
all the time.

"What's the matter?" every one asked when she sank almost breathless
into an arm-chair.

"Sarah has gone mad!" she exclaimed. "I assure you she has gone quite
mad. She has cut out the whole of her scene with me."

"But how?" every one asked.

"She has cut out two hundred lines," said Croizette.

"But what for?" was the eager question.

"I don't know. She looks quite calm."

The whole of this conversation, which was repeated to me later on, took
much less time than it does now to write it down. Coquelin had been
told, and he now came on to the stage to finish the act. The curtain
fell. I was stupefied and desperate afterwards on hearing all that
people told me. I had not noticed that anything was wrong, and it seemed
to me that I had played the whole of my part as usual, but I was really
under the influence of the opium. There was very little for me to say in
the fifth act, and I went through that perfectly well. The following day
the accounts in the papers sounded the praises of our company, but the
piece itself was criticised. I was afraid at first that my involuntary
omission of the important scene in the third act was one of the causes
of the severity of the Press. This was not so, though, as all the
critics had read and re-read the piece. They discussed the play itself,
and did not mention my slip of memory.

The _Figaro_, which was in a very bad humour with me just then, had an
article from which I quote the following extract:

"_L'Etrangere_ is not a piece in accordance with the English taste.
Mlle. Croizette, however, was applauded enthusiastically, and so were
Coquelin and Febvre. Mile. Sarah Bernhardt, nervous as usual, lost her
memory.'" (_Figaro_, June 3rd.)

He knew perfectly well, this worthy Mr. Johnson, [Footnote: T. Johnson,
London correspondent of _Le Figaro_.] that I was very ill. He had been
to my house and seen Dr. Parrot; consequently he was aware that I was
acting in spite of the Faculty in the interests of the Comedie
Francaise. The English public had given me such proofs of appreciation
that the Comedie was rather affected by it, and the _Figaro_, which was
at that time the organ of the Theatre Francais, requested Johnson to
modify his praises of me. This he did the whole time that we were in
London.

My reason for telling about my loss of memory, which was quite an
unimportant incident in itself, is merely to prove to authors how
unnecessary it is to take the trouble of explaining the characters of
their creations. Alexandre Dumas was certainly anxious to give us the
reasons which caused Mrs. Clarkson to act as strangely as she did. He
had created a person who was extremely interesting and full of action as
the play proceeds. She reveals herself to the public, in the first act,
by the lines which Mrs. Clarkson says to Madame de Septmonts:

"I should be very glad, Madame, if you would call on me. We could talk
about one of your friends, Monsieur Gerard, whom I love perhaps as much
as you do, although he does not perhaps care for me as he does for you."

That was quite enough to interest the public in these two women. It was
the eternal struggle of good and evil, the combat between vice and
virtue. But it evidently seemed rather commonplace to Dumas, ancient
history, in fact, and he wanted to rejuvenate the old theme by trying to
arrange for an orchestra with organ and banjo. The result he obtained
was a fearful cacophony. He wrote a foolish piece, which might have been
a beautiful one. The originality of his style, the loyalty of his ideas,
and the brutality of his humour sufficed for rejuvenating old ideas
which, in reality, are the eternal basis of tragedies, comedies, novels,
pictures, poems, and pamphlets. It was love between vice and virtue.
Among the spectators who saw the first performance of _L'Etrangere_ in
London, and there were quite as many French as English present, not one
remarked that there was something wanting, and not one of them said that
he had not understood the character.

I talked about it to a very learned Frenchman.

"Did you notice the gap in the third act?" I asked him.

"No," he replied.

"In my big scene with Croizette?"

"No."

"Well then, read what I left out," I insisted.

When he had read this he exclaimed:

"So much the better. It's very dull, all that story, and quite useless.
I understand the character without all that rigmarole and that romantic
history."

Later on, when I apologised to Dumas _fils_ for the way in which I had
cut down his play, he answered, "Oh, my dear child, when I write a play
I think it is good, when I see it played I think it is stupid, and when
any one tells it to me I think it is perfect, as the person always
forgets half of it."

The performances given by the Comedie Francaise drew a crowd nightly to
the Gaiety Theatre, and I remained the favourite. I mention this now
with pride, but without any vanity. I was very happy and very grateful
for my success, but my comrades had a grudge against me on account of
it, and hostilities began in an underhand, treacherous way.

Mr. Jarrett, my adviser and agent, had assured me that I should be able
to sell a few of my works, either my sculpture or paintings. I had
therefore taken with me six pieces of sculpture and ten pictures, and I
had an exhibition of them in Piccadilly. I sent out invitations, about a
hundred in all.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales let me know that he would come
with the Princess of Wales. The English aristocracy and the celebrities
of London came to the inauguration. I had only sent out a hundred
invitations, but twelve hundred people arrived and were introduced to
me. I was delighted, and enjoyed it all immensely.

Mr. Gladstone did me the great honour of talking to me for about ten
minutes. With his genial mind he spoke of everything in a singularly
gracious way. He asked me what impression the attacks of certain
clergymen on the Comedie Francaise and the damnable profession of
dramatic artistes had made on me. I answered that I considered our art
quite as profitable, morally, as the sermons of Catholic and Protestant
preachers.

"But will you tell me, Mademoiselle,'" he insisted, "what moral lesson
you can draw from _Phedre_?"

"Oh, Mr. Gladstone," I replied, "you surprise me. _Phedre_ is an ancient
tragedy; the morality and customs of those times belong to perspective
quite different from ours and different from the morality of our present
society. And yet in that there is the punishment of the old nurse
Oenone, who commits the atrocious crime of accusing an innocent person.
The love of Phedre is excusable on account of the fatality which hangs
over her family and descends pitilessly upon her. In our times we should
call that fatality atavism, for Phedre was the daughter of Minos and
Pasiphae. As to Theseus, his verdict, against which there could be no
appeal, was an arbitrary and monstrous act, and was punished by the
death of that beloved son of his, who was the sole and last hope of his
life. We ought never to do what is irreparable."

"Ah," said the Grand Old Man, "you are against capital punishment?"

"Yes, Mr. Gladstone."

Fidel and Che: a revolutionary friendship

After last week's fairly open theme, I thought I'd go with something a bit more structured this time. As I type this, I'm listening to Steeleye Span and thinking about the great ballad traditions of Britain and Ireland. What is a ballad? I suppose the most inclusive definition would be that it's a singable narrative poem: that covers a multitude but will do for the moment.

Ballads in English stretch back to the middle ages, with fine examples to be found among the Scottish border ballads and the English Robin Hood poems. These early ballads are among the best-known poems and stories in the language, and form part of the common heritage of English speakers everywhere. They gave rise to a tradition of ballad-making that endures down to the present day.

In fact, most poets since have tried their hand at the ballad at one time or another, and the result has been to deny any definition more specific than the one I ventured in my first paragraph. If you look around the internet, you'll come up with a wide selection of poems that are called ballads but have little in common formally. Stanza length varies from two to 10 or more lines, and all sorts of metrical and rhyming patterns are used. A good number will be singable in only the loosest possible sense, and at times the narrative tends to get lost in a mesh of more-or-less successful verbal embroidery.

So, what should a ballad be? Well, "proper" ballad stanzas are quatrains in which the first and third lines have four stresses and the second and third have three. The lines will rhyme A-B-C-B or A-B-A-B. It's as simple, and as difficult, as that. Here's an example, from Robert Burns's extremely singable Comin Thro' the Rye:

Gin a body meet a body
          Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body –
          Need a body cry.

Burns wrote a good number of ballads, and his lead was followed by many 19th-century poets. Two examples that I particularly like are Robert Browning's Confessions and Christina Rossetti's Up-Hill, but you can find ballads by just about any Romantic or Victorian poet if you look for them.

There is a long, strong tradition of ballads and ballad singers in Ireland, too. It is hardly surprising, then, that the great appropriator of tradition, WB Yeats, tried his hand at the form. At least four of his poems have the word "ballad" in the title; the pick of the bunch, for my money, is The Ballad of Father Gilligan, which may have benefited from having been written with a specific tune in mind.

Ballads continued to be written in the 20th century; perhaps the most unexpected exponents were Ezra Pound, with his Ballad of the Goodly Fere, and WH Auden. In fact, the ballad The Quarry is probably my favourite Auden poem.

And so, this week I invite a chorus of balladeering. You may choose to go the whole hog and write in ballad stanzas or you might prefer to take a more liberal view of the formal requirements. Either way, sing up and – as they say at all the best Irish sessions when calling for a bit of hush for the singer – one voice please.

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Obituary: Donald Westlake

The disputed Holocaust memoir, written by Herman Rosenblat, which was dropped from Penguin Group's publication schedule at the end of December is now set to appear as a work of fiction.

Rosenblat's memoir - which Oprah Winfrey called "the single greatest love story" she had heard in two decades in television - recounted how as a teenage boy in a Nazi concentration camp, he was kept alive by the food which was thrown to him by a young girl, Roma Radzicky. Penguin's US imprint Berkley Books had planned to publish the story, which sees Rosenblat reunited with Radzicky on a blind date years later, as Angel at the Fence: the True Story of a Love That Survived, next month.

But a Holocaust historian said it would have been impossible to approach the fence in the Schlieben concentration camp to throw food over it, concluding that this part of the story was made-up. Berkley initially defended the book, saying it was a work of memory, but then decided to cancel its planned publication, and demanded the return of the advance it had made to Rosenblat. A $25m film based on the book, to be called The Flower of the Fence, is still going ahead, with production due to start this year.

Publisher York House Press based in White Plains, New York, has entered into a tentative agreement with the film production company to publish a novel based on the film script early this spring. It said the book would be "grounded in fact", and would rise "to the proper levels of artistic value, ethical conduct and social responsibility".

A spokesperson for York House Press condemned the attacks which were made on the 80-year-old Rosenblat after the veracity of his story was questioned, describing them as a "savage" response to what was otherwise "a credible, heart-wrenching, and verifiable account" of his time in the concentration camp.

"No deliberate untruth is permissible, but beneath any fabrication is motivation and intent. We believe Mr. Rosenblat's motivations were very human, understandable and forgivable," the spokesperson said. "It is beyond our expertise to know how Holocaust survivors cope with their trauma. Do they deny, try to forget, rationalise or fantasise and promote fiction along with truth? Perhaps the coping mechanisms are as individual as the survivors themselves."

The president of the company producing the film, Harris Salomon from Atlantic Overseas Productions, said the book, "regardless of its shortcomings", would "challenge, educate and enlighten" readers about the horrors of the Holocaust. "The documented fact, acknowledged by his critics, is that Herman is a survivor of concentration camps," he said.

But Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst, said that neither she nor Rosenblat were involved with this version of his story. "Usually book rights from films come out after the movie is released," she told guardian.co.uk. "I think the timing on this is very insensitive."

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