The Holocaust Industry
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a 2000 book by Norman Finkelstein, in which the author 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. According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.
Finkelstein on the book
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". 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." 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.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".
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 largely ignored in the United States. He sees The New York Times as the main promotional vehicle of the "Holocaust industry", and says that the 1999 Index listed 273 entries for the Holocaust and just 32 entries for the entire continent of Africa.
Chapters
- 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".
- 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.
- 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 to nearly 1 million 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.
Reviews and critiques
In addition to support from individuals such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, the Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg praised Finkelstein's book:The book received negative reviews. According to Israeli journalist Yair Sheleg, in August 2000, German historian Hans Mommsen called it "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices." Wolfgang Benz stated to Le Monde: "It is impossible to learn anything from Finkelstein's book. At best, it is interesting for a psychotherapist." The reviewer of this daily added that Norman Finkelstein "hardly cares about nuance" and Rony Brauman wrote in the preface to the French edition that some assertions of N. Finkelstein are wrong, others being pieces of "propaganda". Historian Peter Novick, whose work Finkelstein described as providing the "initial stimulus" for The Holocaust Industry, asserted in the July 28, 2000 issue of The Jewish Chronicle that the book is replete with "false accusations", "egregious misrepresentations", "absurd claims" and "repeated mis-statements". Finkelstein replied to the allegations by Novick on his homepage. Hasia Diner has accused Peter Novick and Finkelstein of being "harsh critics of American Jewry from the left," and challenges the notion reflected in their books that American Jews did not begin to commemorate the Holocaust until after 1967.
Andrew Ross, reviewing the book for Salon, wrote:
Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld wrote that The Holocaust Industry "is representative of a polemical engagement with the Holocaust" that places it in line with a number of other works by "critics of Holocaust consciousness, all of whom stress the utilitarian function of memory", and who see many modern references to The Holocaust as "means of enhancing ethnic identity and advancing political agendas of one kind or another". Rosenfeld also noted that the book presents those ideas in a very "harsh and inflammatory way."
Jonathan Freedland in a column for The Guardian wrote that unlike Novick's book, The Holocaust Industry does not share its "sensitivity or human empathy - surely prerequisites of any meaningful debate about the Holocaust". Freedland accused Finkelstein of having constructed "an elaborate conspiracy theory, in which the Jews were pushed from apathy to obsession about the Holocaust by a corrupt Jewish leadership bent on building international support for Israel".
Finkelstein's response to critics
Finkelstein responded to his critics in the foreword to the second edition, writing "Mainstream critics allege that I conjured a 'conspiracy theory' while those on the Left ridicule the book as a defense of 'the banks'. None, so far as I can tell, question my actual findings."Other topics
Fraudulent writings on the Holocaust
Finkelstein claims that there are two known frauds connected to the Holocaust, that of The Painted Bird by Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski - which was published as fiction - and Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski. He claims that Kosinski and Wilkomirski were defended even after their supposed frauds had been exposed. He identifies some of the defenders as members of the "Holocaust Industry", and writes that they also support each other. Elie Wiesel supported Kosinski; Israel Gutman and Daniel Goldhagen supported Wilkomirski; Wiesel and Gutman support Goldhagen.Other genocides
Finkelstein compares 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". One 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, according to Finkelstein, he was "angrily compared... to a holocaust denier" by Israel Charny, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.Forms of Holocaust denial
According to Finkelstein, Elie Wiesel characterized any suggestion that he has profited from the "Holocaust Industry", or even any criticism at all, as Holocaust denial. 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 – and Finkelstein says the most "insidious" forms of Holocaust denial are "immoral equivalencies", denying the uniqueness of The Holocaust. 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".Holocaust deniers in real life
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. Finkelstein claims that Holocaust deniers have as much influence in the US as the Flat Earth Society.Publishing history
Publishing history of The Holocaust Industry:- 2000; First published, by Verso Books 150 p. Hardcover,
- 2001; First paperback edition, Verso.
- 2003; Second edition, expanded; 286 p., paperback, Verso.