[Peace-discuss] Holocaust Industry

[David Johnson]

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a 2000 book by Norman G. Finkelstein that argues that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.[1] According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.

     

Finkelstein states that his consciousness of "the Nazi holocaust" is rooted in his parents' experiences in the Warsaw ghetto; with the exception of his parents themselves, "every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis".[2] Nonetheless, during his childhood, no one ever asked any questions about what his mother and father had suffered. He suggests, "This was not a respectful silence. It was indifference."[2] It was only after the establishment of "the Holocaust industry", he suggests, that outpourings of anguish over the plight of the Jews in World War II began. This ideology in turn served to endow Israel with a status as "'victim' state" despite its "horrendous" human rights record.[2]

According to Finkelstein, his book is "an anatomy and an indictment of the Holocaust industry". He argues that "'The Holocaust' is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust".[3]

In the foreword to the first paperback edition, Finkelstein notes that the first hardback edition had been a considerable hit in several European countries and many languages, but had been panned in the US. He sees The New York Times as the main promotional vehicle of the "Holocaust industry", and notes that the 1999 Index listed 273 entries for the Holocaust and just 32 entries for the entire continent of Africa.

Chapters
  a.. Chapter 1: Capitalizing The Holocaust - by the 1980s, Finkelstein states, the "War against the Jews" had become more important to American cultural life than the "War Between the States".(p. 11)
  b.. Chapter 2: Hoaxers, Hucksters and History - in 1967, Finkelstein claims that two concepts appeared in public discourse: The uniqueness of the Holocaust, and the concept of the Holocaust as climax of a historical irrational anti-Semitic tendency in Europe. Finkelstein asserts that these concepts became central to the "Holocaust Industry", but that neither figures in scholarship of the Nazi Holocaust.(p. 13)
  c.. Chapter 3: The Double Shakedown - in this chapter, Finkelstein claims that the number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust recognized by relief groups increased from c. 100,000 in 1945[4] to nearly 1 million[5] owing to definitional changes in who was considered to be a survivor. Because of this, Finkelstein repeatedly asserts that "fraudulent" claims were made on Switzerland, while accounts and assets in the US and Israel were ignored. Payments were made to the wrong people and real survivors lost out.
The second (2003) edition contained 100 pages of new material, primarily in chapter 3 on the Swiss Banks lawsuit. Finkelstein set out to provide a guide to the relevant sections of the case. He feels that the presiding judge elected not to docket crucial documents, and that the Claims Resolution Tribunal could no longer be trusted. Finkelstein claims the CRT was on course to vindicate the Swiss banks before it changed tack in order to "protect the blackmailers' reputation".

Other topics
Fraudulent writings on the Holocaust
Finkelstein describes two known frauds, that of The Painted Bird by Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski and Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski, and how they were defended by people even after they'd been exposed. He identifies some of these people as members of the "Holocaust Industry", and notes that they also support each other. Elie Wiesel supported Kosinski; Israel Gutman and Daniel Goldhagen (see below) supported Wilkomirski; Wiesel and Gutman support Goldhagen.

Holocaust Industry defends itself
Finkelstein has published heavy criticisms of several books in his career, as he did to Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Johnah Goldhagen, which he calls "replete with gross misinterpretations of source material and internal contradictions", and says "the book is devoid of scholarly value". Independently, Ruth Bettina Birn (the world's leading authority on the archives that Goldhagen had consulted and chief historian for War Crimes with the Canadian Department of Justice) did the same - she and Finkelstein worked together on A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. Goldhagen refused the journal's invitation for a full rebuttal, and instead enlisted a London law firm to sue Birn and the Cambridge University Press. Protests were made to Birn's employer, calling her "a member of the perpetrator race" (she is German-born), prompting an official investigation of her.(p. 66)

Other genocides
Finkelstein scathingly compared the media treatment of the Holocaust and the media treatment of other genocides such as the Holodomor and the Armenian Genocide, particularly by members of what he calls "The Holocaust Industry". (1 to 1.5 million Armenians died in the years between 1915 and 1917/1923 - denial includes the claim that they were the result of a Civil War within World War I, or refusal to accept there were deaths). In 2001, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres went so far as to dismiss it as "allegations". However, by this time historical consensus was changing, and he was "angrily compared ... to a holocaust denier" by Dr Charny, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.[6]

In August 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.[7] However, Wiesel's organization asserted there would be no legal "basis for reparations or territorial claims", anticipating Turkish anxieties that it could prompt financial or property claims. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League announced: "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide".[8]

Other forms of Holocaust denial
According to Finkelstein, Elie Wiesel characterizes any suggestion that he has profited from the "Holocaust Industry", or even any criticism at all, as Holocaust denial.[9] Questioning a survivor's testimony, denouncing the role of Jewish collaborators, suggesting that Germans suffered during the bombing of Dresden or that any state except Germany committed crimes in World War II are all evidence of Holocaust denial - according to Deborah Lipstadt[10] - and the most "insidious" forms of Holocaust denial are "immoral equivalencies", denying the uniqueness of The Holocaust.[11] Finkelstein examines the implications of applying this standard to another member of the "Holocaust Industry", Daniel Goldhagen, who argued that Serbian actions in Kosovo "are, in their essence, different from those of Nazi Germany only in scale".[12]

Holocaust deniers in real life
Further information: Armenian Genocide recognition and Holocaust denial
According to Finkelstein, Deborah Lipstadt claims there is widespread Holocaust denial - yet in "Denying the Holocaust" her prime example is Arthur Butz, author of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. The chapter on him is entitled "Entering the Mainstream" - but Finkelstein considers that, were it not for the likes of Lipstadt, no one would ever have heard of Arthur Butz. Holocaust deniers have as much influence in the US as the Flat Earth Society (p. 69). Finkelstein believes there to be only one "truly mainstream" holocaust denier-Bernard Lewis, who was convicted in France of denying the Armenian genocide.[13] Since Lewis is pro-Israel, "this instance ... raises no hackles in the United States."
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