Stefan Maechler

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Stefan Mächler
Born (1957-05-30) 30 May 1957 (age 66)
Baden, Switzerland
OccupationHistorian, author
GenreModern history
Notable worksDer Fall Wilkomirski

Stefan Maechler (born 30 May 1957) is a Swiss historian and expert on antisemitism and Switzerland's treatment of Holocaust refugees during and after World War II.

Biography[edit]

Education[edit]

Mächler was born on 30 May 1957 in Baden, Switzerland.[1] He studied history and German literature at the University of Zurich.

Wilkomirski affair[edit]

He was commissioned by the Schocken Books specializing in judaica to conduct a full-scale investigation into the life of writer Binjamin Wilkomirski whose memoir Fragments, published by Schocken in 1996, sparked international controversy.[2] Maechler studied hundreds of personal documents, and has interviewed eyewitnesses and families of survivors in seven countries. He was given unrestricted access to government files, and subsequently, discovered facts that completely refuted Wilkomirski's bestselling book as a forgery.[3] Maechler published his findings in a book called The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth by Schocken Books, New York, in 2001 (496 pp.); originally in the German language as Der Fall Wilkomirski: über die Wahrheit einer Biographie by Pendo Verlag AG, Zurich, 2000.

Personal life[edit]

Maechler lives and works in Zürich.[4][5][3]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "Maechler, Stefan 1957". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  2. ^ Stefan Maechler (2009). The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth (Google Books, preview). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307493248. Retrieved 21 March 2015. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. ^ a b Rick Perlstein (April 30, 2001). "A Holocaust Fraud Exposed, a Peccadillo Papered Over". Arts and Culture. Observer Media. Retrieved 7 February 2015. Author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Hill & Wang.
  4. ^ Lawrence Birken (2002). "The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth by Stefan Maechler". Shofar. 21 (1). JSTOR: 174–176. doi:10.1353/sho.2002.0092. JSTOR 42944065. S2CID 144940722.
  5. ^ Random House (2015). The Wilkomirski Affair. A Study in Biographical Truth. Written by Stefan Maechler (Look Inside). Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0-8052-1135-1. Retrieved 7 February 2015. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

References[edit]