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Norman G. Finkelstein

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, New Edition 2nd Edition Paperback – September 1, 2003

by Norman G. Finkelstein (Author)

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In an iconoclastic and controversial study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel’s evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America’s Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism’s victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed.

In a devastating new postscript to this best-selling book, Norman G. Finkelstein documents the Holocaust industry’s scandalous cover-up of the blackmail of Swiss banks, and in a new appendix demolishes an influential apologia for the Holocaust industry.

Print length

286 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Verso
Publication date

September 1, 2003
Dimensions

5.3 x 0.86 x 7.5 inches
ISBN-10

185984488X
ISBN-13

978-1859844885
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[S]cathing in his denunciation of the institutions and individuals who have cropped up around the issue of reparations.”—New York Press

“The most controversial book of the year.”—The Guardian

“His basic argument that memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due.”—The Economist

“Finkelstein’s downright pugilistic book delivers a wallop.”—LA Weekly

“Breathtaking in [its] angry accuracy and irony.”—The Jewish Quarterly

“A lucid, provocative and passionate book.”—New Statesman

About the Author

Norman G. Finkelstein is the author of A Nation on Trial (with Ruth Bettina Birn), named a notable book for 1998 by the New York Times Book Review, and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; Second Edition (September 1, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 286 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 185984488X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1859844885
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.3 x 0.86 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #667,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,004 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #10,397 in Engineering (Books)

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KOLOTOC

TRUTH

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023

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UGLY TRUTH THEN, THEY JUST LYIE

3 people found this helpful

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David C.

Excellent and thought provoking

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2012

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`Bout half way thru the book now, and it's extremely well put together and with well documented sources.

It was nice to see that Mr. Finkelstein hit home that there's been many, Holocausts / ethnic cleansings / genocides (though he doesn't specifically name them all, here's just a few; 90 million-ish Native American exterminated by Christians, Catholics, Jews, atheists, etc., etc; The Bolshevik Trotsky a.k.a. Lev Bronshtein committed genocide in about 1917-1921 murdering about 4 million gentiles and Christians; yet, the Bolsheviks once again committed genocide against the gentiles and Christians murdering 7-10 million Ukrainians in 1932-1933. The Bolsheviks were brutely cruel.

In fact, since the Bolsheviks murder's wall came down, many things are now coming to life. Roughly 65-120 million gentiles and Christians were murdered from 1917 to 1989 by the Communists. Now that's genocide. It's a shame the Native Americans and Christians do not have a museum in Washington D.C. to remember their 10's of millions who died by genocide. (Wouldn't it be nice if the people of the jewish faith honored the genocide of the Native Americans by building a museum in the middle of Tel Aviv?)

Mr. Finkelstein shows us time and time and time again what happens when a person brings up documentation that contradicts the propaganda that's been thrust upon us for years. Any group of people that refuses to have an honest debate seems to immediately begin character assassinating. The character assassination of someone who asks questions is an immediate red flag of someone hiding something.

During the last few decades we have discovered that Hitler DID NOT make soap, lamp shades, etc, etc. out of people of the jewish faith. (I was told for decades that Hitler did do these nasty things. Apparently a group of people had lied to me for decades.) We have also discovered that Hitler DID NOT have any homicidal gas chambers within the borders of Germany. (I was told for decades that Hitler did have homicidal gas chambers inside Germany. Again, apparently a group of people had lied to me for decades.)

In fact, the dead emaciated corpses I've seen in pictures and film were thoroughly examined by U.S. Military medical professionals when the camps were liberated, and those medical experts clearly stated that all the dead bodies found in German camps were from typhus, starvation, and other diseases.

The fine outstanding International Red Cross (who were physically present doing their humanitarian deeds at the concentration camps during the war) witnessed about 30,000 inmates die in one month from typhus and starvation in the last 90 or so days of the war - and the Red Cross begged the allies to stop the bombing of railways and continue to let food and meds thru. The allies refused.

The Red Cross' well documented numbers of people of the jewish faith who died in all of Hitler's camps differ greatly from what I was told for decades as a child. These documents were hidden in the hands of communists, and only released after their wall came down and files were made open to more eyes.

In fact, when the Communists murder's wall did come down, the Jewish historians at Auschwitz immediately changed the number of Jewish deaths by millions. Apparently the Bolshivks who liberated the Polish camps kept records secret from us; and the number of dead inmates that I've been told for decades was a complete fabrication.

So thank you Mr. Finkelstein for this insightful book. Thank you for letting me know that certain people pressured our Congress to take my property (tax $) and build a museum in D.C. for an event that never happened on our soil. How selfish can a group of people be?

You've opened by eyes and exposed many, many more lies that have thrust upon the American people. Thank you sir.

48 people found this helpful

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Kaarik

Cleaning house on the holocaust memory.

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2006

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The main premise of this book is that after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the powers-that-be in the U.S. saw Israel as a geopolitical asset in the Middle East. Johnson, in particular, decided to tap that asset in the interests of the Cold War. Thus, Jewish organizations siezed the opportunity and in lock-step with U.S. interest, began to exploit the memory of the holocaust, supposed "victim" status, and claims of anti-Semitism in support of Israel. Could this theory be true?

I went to my local college library which has a small section of books on permanent display dedicated to Jewish literature. Not one book on display was published before 1967. But, there were more books in the collection, so a little advertising says, related to the Holocaust. So I search the e-catlog and indeed found some 838 titles through 2006 on or related to jewish holocaust. Only 3 were published before 1967. After 1967 the number of books on the subject explodes: 8 in the 60s, 48 in the 70s, nearly 200 in the 80s, and almost 400 in the 90s.

While I don't claim this survey is scientific, it might be indicative of Finkelstein's theory which seems basically right-on regarding when and how the holocaust came into public consciousness as we know it today.

Out of curiosity, I searched for Finkelstein's book, the Holocaust Industry, among the library's collection. It was not in the 838 titles. Furthermore, Finkelstein's name wasn't even in the listing. What does that tell you? In a college library? Doesn't this book belong among holocaust literature? How are students supposed to analyze and test and study Holocaust claims unless, of course, they are not supposed to do so? Someone once said there's a thin line between brainwashing and education.

Finkelstein's book made me feel a sense of release and sadness. Release because what Finkelstein writes is not anti-Simetic but merely gives voice to what many people probably suspect without even reading his book. What is that? As Rabbi Wolf at Yale states: "It seems to me the Holocaust is being sold...it is not being taught." How many others must feel this way and for fear of being labelled anti-Semitic never discussed the matter, even among friends?

For my part, I had for years attributed the "selling" of the Holocaust to what the Brazilian educator Freire called "pedagogy of the oppressed." Why else would a people (Jews) who managed to survive Hitler turn around and subjugate others (Palestinians)? Oh, did they learn their lessons. Yet according the Finkelstein, the answer is much simpler and has nothing to do with lessons and pedagogy and all that humbug but cashing-in and opportunism.

I am saddened because The Holocaust Industry makes clear that the suffering of some Jewish people has been exploited by Jewish organizations and others to deflect legitimate criticisms of Israel, including disenfranchisement and brutal and tortuous treament of Palestinians.

Although Israel appears above criticism these days, the remarkable thing is that Finkelstein has nevertheless come forward to clean house on the matter. He is, indeed, a courageous soul. (If you don't think so, read the email which he posts on his website.) This book is helping us to understand and release this burden called Israel, so that we can live honestly with the memory of what happened to Jews during WW II and how some prominent Jews and powerful Jewish organizations are regrettably denigrating that memory.

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Ronald Ostrowski

This book should be more widely read

Reviewed in Australia on March 15, 2019

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As an Australian I must confess that up until the last couple of years I accepted that the compensation for Jewish Holocaust survivors was above board. I also believed that most Jews respected that fact that the Poland of my late Polish father, who served with the Free Polish Forces fighting Nazi Germany alongside the Western allies, was also a victim nation and a strong ally fighting the Nazis both at home and on both the Western and Eastern fronts from 1939 to 1945.

I remember back in the 1970s frequently going to a small Melbourne grocery shop near where I was living owned by a Polish Jew, who was a survivor of the German (not Polish Death camps), continually lecturing me for not speaking proper Polish, and that I should be very proud of my Polish heritage. Fast forward a few decades and now there are many Jews, mainly in Israel and America, falsely accusing the Poles of being Axis allies of Hitler, largely responsible for the Jewish Holocaust and dismissing suffering and murder of millions of Polish Christians as irrelevant. They also deliberately play down the Polish war effort and the fact that several Poles (one estimate is 5,000) were murdered for trying to save Jews, while at least 100,000 others were saved by the Poles at the risk of their own lives, because only in Poland did the Germans (my father always said that there was no Nazi nationality) execute Poles and their family members for hiding Jews. Consequent I am interested in reading the Jewish authors who attempt at being historically factual and objective about the post Holocaust developments and emerging myths such as the notion of anti-Semitism everywhere you look.

Firstly, it should be pointed out that Norman Finkelstein is the American son of Jewish Holocaust survivor parents, and is in no way a Holocaust denier or plays down the fact that 6 million European Jews were murdered. While a great many Polish Christians, Soviet POWs, Gypsies amongst many other perished in the concentration camps it was the Jews who were subject to industrialised mass murder in the death camps of Auschwitz Birkenau, Sobibor, Treblinka amongst others.

What Finkelstein firstly suggests is that Jews should not subsume their rich history and culture to the common denominator of The Holocaust which, in his view is not merely looked upon the horrible tragedy it was but rather as a dogma to use against the gentiles should they in any way criticise the actions of Israel or the Jews per se. He also exposes the scams of the largely American based Holocaust Industry where extortion is rife, particularly in the case of the Swiss Banks, and where the monies extorted hardly go to the few remaining surviving Holocaust victims and their families, but rather to Jewish organisations and their salaries and to fund the fight against anti-Semitism. He also points out that this Holocaust Industry in itself promotes the boorish Holocaust deniers and contributes to growing anti-Semitism around the world, including the USA. I highly recommend this strongly researched and evidence based book.

2 people found this helpful

Studio guy

Important Book - The Truth Hurts.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2023

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Excellent read for those interested in this complicated subject.

Dr Norman Finkelstein is a Jewish man that tells the absolute truth, and that usually upsets most other Jewish people. None more so than Alan Dershowitz the American lawyer, who has tried for years to shut down Norman Finkelstein.
This book is a real eye opener - documenting the downright underhanded criminal payments/agreements in and outside Israel over the years regarding the Holocaust.

The book is more relevant now than ever considering the recent events in the middle East, and how a gangster and war criminal has gained control over the country YET AGAIN.

If you think all Israeli/Jewish people are the same - read this book !
It will soon get that idea right out of your head.
David Baddiel would do good to read this book before lecturing anyone.

Buy this before it's banned ! (on Amazon)

9 people found this helpful

Ms. Erica Wildwood

Everyone should read this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2020

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Yesterday my newspaper featured a Jewish comedian who had met a holocaust denier. The BBC filmed this and it will be shown shortly. Today the paper printed a letter praising the comedian for his "bravery" in "sticking his head above the parapet". This ludicrous sentiment shows how the holocaust industry has cast the Jews (actually the most powerful ethnic minority in the world) as eternal victims, and how it pretends that holocaust deniers, a minuscule and long discedited minority, represent a danger to Jews, therefore justifying the existence of Israel as a "safe haven", and ignoring its racist and terrorist policies and practices.
In actual fact, there cannot be many people who haven't had the holocaust rammed down their throats in school. Holocaust memorial day is observed in every country in the western world, there is a holocaust museum in every major city in America, and the holocaust industry is worth billions. So the person who actually did stick his head above the parapet is Norman Finkelstein who wrote this deeply shocking but hardly surprising book.
The holocaust industry minimises the suffering of non-Jews in WW2. I was born in Holland 10 years after the end of the war. My parents suffered horribly in the bombardment of Roterdam, the occupation, and the Hunger Winter of 1944-45, at the end of which my mother had a baby that only lived for 10 days. But how many people have even heard of the Hunger Winter? What the war in Holland means to the rest of the world is limited to the story of Anne Frank, who is regarded as a secular saint. (Actually, she wasn't a very nice person, and certainly not heroic. The heroes were the Dutch gentiles who risked their lives to support her and her family. Can you name even one? Thought not.)
It keeps getting worse. Any criticism of Israel is now conflated with anti-semitism, and this was used to demonise the Labour party in the recent general election. Ken Livingstone was hounded out of office for making a historically accurate remark ("even Hitler supported Zionism before he went mad.") Meanwhile, Israel continues to flout international law, to steal ancestral Palestinian land for Lebensraum, and to treat Palestinians as Untermenschen. It has declared itself a Jewish state (imagine if we declared ourselves an Anglo-Saxon state! I also remember another state with an ambition to be racially pure - Aryan, in that particular case.)
This is a brave and necessary book. Predictably, Finklestein has been utterly vilified for it. It exposes the hypocrisy and double standards that rule our world (When is terrorism not terrorism? When it's carried out by America or Israel). This book ought to be widely known and read, but of course it isn't. I came across it quite accidentally - and serendipitously.
By the way, in the 60s, before the 1967 war, we all admired Israel as a brave new socialist country, and in Holland most of my generation aspired to spend time working on a kibbutz. How idealistic and naive we were then. And how far Israel has lurched to the right since then.

79 people found this helpful

Scriptwriter

Provocative and detailed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2020

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In this densely argued and extensively footnoted work, author Norman Finkelstein lays out the case in great detail – albeit in 150 short pages – that the use of the Nazi Holocaust as a historical event, has become an industry, subject to overt political usage and economic gain.

That the state of Israel brandishes the Holocaust to silence criticism and smears dissenters as anti-Semites, is obvious and does not need a book length treatise. The Holocaust Industry dives deep in to something much more insidious: that use of the holocaust is invoked by the West (and specifically the United States) only when it is politically convenient to do so e.g. the Holocaust was invoked when boat people were fleeing official enemies of the United States, such as Communist Vietnam or Saddam-era Iraq; when the refugees are fleeing murderous US-backed death squads in Haiti or Indonesia, this memory is not invoked.

Finkelstein lays out how this situation has come about since the 1940s through to present day: how the Holocaust has been politically convenient to ignore or remember depending on who the aggressor is but equally appalling, how organisations have used the Holocaust to “shakedown” countries who harboured pre-War Jewish wealth, using grossly exaggerated numbers and political intimidation – and then targeting countries that were politically convenient to do so. Much of this wealth that that has been repatriated has not gone back to the actual Holocaust victims but instead has been usurped by organisations to achieve certain “community” goals (Finkelstein also takes issue with the numbers used regarding Jewish Holocaust survivors, which, he argues, have been greatly inflated).

The Holocaust Industry is undoubtedly a provocative book that will prove incendiary for some. However, Finkelstein argues his case persuasively, using extensive notes and references. If you are interested in the political use of history, a student or teacher of the Holocaust, or someone with a general interest in the ramifications of World War II, this is a stimulating and well-researched text.

12 people found this helpful

Debra B.

Important reading.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2023

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This book should be read by everyone. The author is so brave and honest I truly respect him and his writing and sincerely my hat off to him for daring to swim against the tide.

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