New York -- A Holocaust survivor's memoir of love in a Nazi concentration camp, which was yanked from publication last month when he admitted it was a hoax, may reappear as a work of fiction.

Berkley Books, a unit of Penguin Books, has canceled a planned publication of Herman Rosenblat's memoir, Angel at the Fence.

But York House Press, a small publishing house based in White Plains, New York, has said it was "in serious discussion" to publish the book as a work of fiction.

"We believe Mr. Rosenblat's motivations were very human, understandable and forgivable," York House Press said in a statement, adding that the book, tentatively titled Flower at the Fence, would be "grounded in fact."

"We understand the dismay at this event of Holocaust historians who work tirelessly to assert the facts of the Holocaust and who must ensure the integrity of unimpeachable survivor accounts as a way to counter anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers of which there are still far too many."

In what American celebrity host Oprah Winfrey once called the "greatest love story," Rosenblat said that during his World War II captivity in the German concentration camp of Schlieben, a branch of the Buchenwald camp, a girl threw him apples over a fence every day to help him survive.

Rosenblat, now 79, married the girl, Roma Radzicki of Poland 12 years later after having immigrated to New York. The couple are still married and live in Florida.

His story, which has inspired a children's book and a screenplay, first gained public attention when Rosenblat won a literary contest organized by the New York Post in 1995.

But experts told The New Republic magazine in December that a civilian could not have thrown apples at a prisoner over the concentration camp's fence. Rosenblat later admitted through his agent, Andrea Hurst, that the apple-throwing detail had been fabricated.

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