Misha And The Wolves is a Netflix documentary written and directed by Sam Hobkinson about the story of the fraud surrounding Misha Defonseca and the plan to expose her.
Misha Defonseca would tell a harrowing story of her time as a Belgian orphan of World War 2. She told neighbors, friends, and a book editor that her parents were taken by the Nazis, but they managed to get her adopted by a French family. Misha explains how she decided to run away and walk to Germany to learn the fate of her parents. Wandering into the wilderness, she was accepted by a wolf pack who cared for her until she made it back to civilization. Her story soon became a bestselling book and later a movie, but after she sued her publisher, some inconsistencies began to appear. Soon, a massive scandal would break, revealing that the story of her journey of survival in Nazi-occupied territory was a fraud.
The documentary is executed very well. They use an actress to explain the part of Misha, since she refused to cooperate with the filmmakers, and that gave it a more personal edge. Using interviews, media archives, and documents, it shows how one woman fooled Americans, Europeans, and the Jewish community into believing her. The movie definitely helps you feel the gravity of the situation and mesmerizes you with the details.
The truly egregious part of Misha’s story is how she got away with it for so long and how the media propped her up, especially the European media. She paraded around Europe on the book tour, and journalists were happy to play PR Agent. When the scam was exposed, only a handful expressed regret at allowing this woman to grift in the most horrendous way possible. Holocaust survivors were treated horribly by this woman, and it is a good thing that she was exposed.
Check out the trailer below:
PARENTAL CONCERNS: Some thematic elements, Minor foul language
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