Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Controversial indictment of those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own gain. 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 , w Controversial indictment of those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own gain. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of , 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. Get A Copy. Paperback , Second Edition , pages. Published October 17th by Verso first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Holocaust Industry , please sign up.
Does the book mention anything about the movie "Schindler's List? Charbel Only in one sentence in the conclusion. The book is mainly about the exploitation of the Holocaust to obtain compensations that went only to a selecte …more Only in one sentence in the conclusion. The book is mainly about the exploitation of the Holocaust to obtain compensations that went only to a selected few and of which very little went to actual survivors.
See 2 questions about The Holocaust Industry…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Wow, what a book. I had this book for a few months and, after seeing the author on a documentary about the Holocaust, bumped the book to the top of my To Read pile.
This work discusses the Nazi holocaust the historical event and how the Holocaust capital H was created after Arab-Israeli War in Finkelstein describes how organizations representing victims of Nazi brutality use tactics similar to those the Nazis used to get money from businesses, countries, and other groups that have any c Wow, what a book. Finkelstein describes how organizations representing victims of Nazi brutality use tactics similar to those the Nazis used to get money from businesses, countries, and other groups that have any connection to Nazi Germany.
I don't think a Gentile could have written this book without having a death warrant placed on him. While I try to keep an open mind about anything and might not believe everything Finkelstein used as examples, I feel that if even half of what is in the book is true, that it's very, very sad. The survivors and their descendants deserve the return of what was taken from them, but it should be their decision on what to do with any compensation, not groups who fought on their behalf in the courts but then use the settlement to pay for things in Israel or to fund some project of the group.
This is a fairly short book and small, maybe 7" x 5" , and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Nazi holocaust, the Holocaust the created, emotionally-charged "ideological representation" of the historical event , or any type of social justice should read it. View all 4 comments. A short, vengeful, insightful, informative, rendition of The Holocaust Industry. Eye-opening, maybe, for some readers, but not so for others. The reason being that Prof.
Finkesltein's information have been shared already by various other historians, who also lost their tenure, and were named and shamed for their "Holocaust Denial". One such victims was Prof. Thomas Dalton. His book was banned in 57 countries. This book is still banned in most countries. What a cruel irony.
The author struggled to get his other books smuggled out of Russia to become best sellers world wide, only to be hit by a new wave of restrictions by a different contingent of free speech oppressors in, what us all were forced to believe, a free democratic society. Finkelstein's other book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History , was another rendition of his sadness that's actually what it is with the current events in the American Jewish contingent.
It is actually a worldwide debate raging in the Jewish psyche. Yet another of his controversial and much despised books, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom" , exposed, what is now regarded in many quarters of the world, as the biggest concentration camp in human history. This book is so explosive that I did not venture into a review, but it is also the book strengthening Finkelstein's argument in The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.
Supported by impeccable research, including photos, this book turns everything we knew upside down. And on and on it goes. I've read so many books on this issue lately, which I did not list on GR, that I will suffice with the ones I actually did mention on GR. About this book: Prof. Finkelstein addresses a few issues: 1 The extortion of money from Germany and Switzerland; 2 The lies and deceit surrounding the Jewish victims of WWII; - one famous example is the writings of Jerzy Kosinsky, regarded as a literary giant until his lies behind his Holocaust experience were exposed.
I'm addressing this issue in my review of his novel Being There. There are sadly thousands more of these Holocaust myths being presented as the truth. And nothing BUT the truth. This reminds me of the quote by Mark E. Levine: You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. The 'brand' enabled a small group of money-grabbers to enrich themselves instead of the real Jewish victims of WWII.
The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood — in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified. Those enjoying this immunity, I might add, have not escaped the moral corruptions that typically attend it. This short book is meticulously researched and copiously foot-noted. Excellent research concludes Prof. Finkelstein's argument. It depends on the reader what will be taken away from this information.
Norman Finkelstein's parents were both holocaust survivors. He has a dog in the fight. He treasures and respect his background. He is no 'Jew-hater' as so many anti-Finkelstein prophets want to portray him.
He is passionate about the plight of the Palestinians. He has an undisputed love for humanity. Since his book Gaza created so much animosity in some circles, and it is a must-read for anyone interested in the situation, I was wondering why the Palestinians don't sue the Israeli government for compensation, like "The Holocaust" managed to extort from anyone associated with the Nazis.
Wouldn't that be fair? Britain lost almost their entire nobility. The latter acted as leaders in the war. Isn't it time for the Jewish organizations who financed these wars to start paying compensation? That's my spark thrown onto this already raging debate. Excerpt from The Myth of German Villainy Without their financial and media support, he probably would never have become president.
These Jews exerted extreme pressure on Wilson to take the United States into the war on the side of Britain to ensure an Allied victory, in exchange for the Balfour Declaration which promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine after the war.
The British promised the Jews that if they could, indeed, bring America into the war, that Palestine would be theirs. The Zionist Jews went to work immediately. They were regarded as "Green Horns", 'unrefined' and not worth the effort to be accepted into society. There were many of these 'Green Horns' who were exploited by lawyers and Jewish organizations to gain financially from The Holocaust.
Did this resentment fired up Finkelstein's irk to run over the American Jewish establishment? He is raging against the injustice of it all. Organized groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, shook down Europe, according to the author, via fraudulent claims, by extorting billions of dollars from Swiss and German Banks as well as government, in effect the German citizenry. Seventy years of extortion paid by generation who never participated in the events.
In the end these groups, and the lawyers, only enriched themselves. The Israeli situation is so complicated and should be considered from different angles, as I'm sure are done where it matters. There's no right or wrong - for me at least. There's only tragedy and hope as far as I am concerned.
The most important though is freedom of speech. And that right, as it originally appeared in a biography Friends of Voltaire by Beatrice Evelyn Hall, and wrongly attributed to Voltaire himself, must reign in all shapes and forms. The book was written under a pseudonym, S. Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!
Voltaire never said it himself. Just a little tidbit for interest's sake. I respect Prof. Finkelstein's right to freedom of speech. There are a gazillion books on this raging debate. This author is a dissenting voice.
His arguments are sound, whether the reader agrees with it or not. Would there have been a change in South Africa, if there were not a few million dissenting voicing from within the Afrikaner community who brought a different perspective, and new historical facts, to that particular debate within the enclave?
Would any change happen anywhere in the world if introspective, robust debate is not allowed among ourselves? We have to listen to these voices. Sep 13, Clif rated it really liked it Shelves: israel-palestine , history , current-affairs. Norman Finkelstein is a phenomenon. He enrages people but he never speaks falsehoods. Backing up his words with copious footnotes referencing the facts upon which he makes his statements, he marches like Sherman through Georgia, laying low everything in his path.
All dissemblers must flee before him because there is no rebuttal to the truth. He is the same in his public appearances, citing the works of the person he debates to turn that person's own words back upon him. This logical, relentless, dr Norman Finkelstein is a phenomenon. This logical, relentless, driving method is much needed in the area where he is an expert - the terrible hypocrisy that is Israel. Being Jewish, with parents who were subject to the Holocaust and whose other relatives died in it, no one can say the man has no standing.
He has devoted his life to investigating and exposing the myths and falsehoods that crowd densely around the Jewish State. His is a voice greatly needed in the United States, blind as this country is to the machinations of Zionists while subject to Zionist influence at all levels of government, industry and finance.
This country stands alone in supporting the decades old oppression that Israel exerts over the natives of Palestine - the largest single factor in the deterioration of the prestige of the United States over the past 40 years.
In this book, Finkelstein examines what can only be called the shakedown of Europe by organized Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, claiming to act in the name of the victims of the Holocaust but mainly working for their own enrichment.
It relates in detail how the Swiss banks and Germany were harassed into provide huge payments to the groups which they intended to use for themselves.
In this grand scheme, non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust were scarcely mentioned, the number of Jewish victims was inflated, people who were nowhere near the death camps were included and the imaginative writing of people who claimed to be survivors of Nazi atrocities but weren't, are lauded as true accounts.
So bad was it that actual Holocaust victims sued the Jewish groups for the proceeds. As Finkelstein relates, United States banks were just as free in dealing in gold with Hitler's Germany as were the Swiss banks. But since the Jewish groups who pressed for reparations were based in the United States and needed U. As the Jewish organizations pushed for quick settlements in the name of survivors nearing death from old age and poor health, once the money was obtained the payouts were delayed for years by these same organizations as they successfully took much of the money for their own projects.
An impartial investigative team under Paul Voelker came up with the facts after three years of research but the Jewish organizations had already pressured the Swiss banks into a huge settlement before the Voelker report repudiated most of what had been claimed. It's a disgusting story, but very much in keeping with the story of Israel - a state that wants the world to pity the plight of Jews in history while at the same time denying any sympathy due the native Palestinians that it rousted from their land at gunpoint.
Israel exists only because of the Holocaust card that it has played relentless to this day. Norman Finkelstein is a praiseworthy man who seeks to follow the truth wherever it leads and whoever it indicts. What is the lesson to be learned? It is that any people who have protection to do wrong will do so.
Jews are people just like everyone else but the Holocaust has allowed some of them a free ride under the protection of the guilt of others and the horror of the event that intimidates people frightened that they might be called anti-Semitic.
We are now witnessing this invisible protective force crumbling before the facts of Israeli behavior. Finkelstein's account of the lack of interest in the Holocaust or Israel by American Jews prior to the war is astounding and profound evidence of the construction of the Holocaust Industry from that time.
Every one of us should first examine ourselves for fault before going after others. This book is the work of someone who does so. It is a quick read, infuriating, and should prompt any American reader to speak up against Israel and for the benighted Palestinians who have been part of the huddling masses the United States has resolutely ignored for over 60 years.
Did you like those books? Did you find yourself affected by either of them? Perhaps they're on your favourite book shelf right now?
If any of the above is true for you, then I would advise you pick this book up. The validity of these authors and their work is the tip of the iceberg in what The Holocaust Industry targets within its conseicse pages. I've been listening to Finkelsteins strict analysis of Israeli policy for a few years now. However, this is my first outing with the Professors.
It's not a random choice that I picked out this essay first he's written a fair few. After reading a few reviews of Finkelsteins other work on goodreads, I was expecting a fairly dry, difficult to diffuse, but ultimately intillectually satisfying book.
What I received instead, was a pretty amazing read with a damning indictment of a handful of people profiteering from the compensation money paid up by Germany and Switzerland for the horrors of the Holocaust.
Not only this, but Finkelstein makes some very poignant observations over the fact that the United States government could have equally shared blame for the same accusations the above countries received. His further critique of the ideology behind the holocaust in the United States is also very eye opening. I won't press any further as it's a short book and deserves a readers full attention its available online via PDF , but Finkelstein is a moral force to be reckoned with.
Not only this, but he manages to be very funny at times, but only when mocking those who are dishonest in their claims and validity.
Overal, It's a crushing attack. I cant recommend books like this enough, as they ask the uncomfortable questions that others would turn their eyes away from. Don't stand too close. View all 5 comments. When you start a book like this, you sort of go, "Jeeze, I almost hope I don't like it," because you know if you do, you're going to have to explain yourself. And, confound it, I liked it. I want to conflate a couple of the points from the letters section of this book with an anecdote of my own: In , while I was living in China, the whole of China became incensed at yet another inaccurate history textbook published in Japan.
The text described the Nanjing Massacre a. The Rape of Nanking When you start a book like this, you sort of go, "Jeeze, I almost hope I don't like it," because you know if you do, you're going to have to explain yourself. They took to the streets, chucked bottles at the Japanese embassy, and called for a worldwide boycott of Japanese goods.
The response was supreme indifference. They claimed that they'd love to help but, pitifully, there were too many Chinese citizens in need of help first. OUR pain is greater. THIS crime is unprecedented. And so on and so forth. And when you feel you've been wronged, you can justify any theft or crime of your own. I've seen this attitude elsewhere in the world, too. Apologies are rarely recognized and when they are, they're not enough.
Generations of people cling to the idea of reparations, no doubt because it's tough getting by in this world and people will take what they can get. But perpetuating guilt perpetuates conflict. It's terribly short-sighted. This is part of what Finklestein tries to point out about Israel and it's important that he does.
Communities need dissent from within. God forbid you're an outsider. Look at what they're saying about Gunter Grass. Suddenly Grass is an anti-semite and banned from Israel, despite his belief in the right to a Jewish nation. All anyone can do now is point out that he'd served in the Waffen SS. The Holocaust industry has nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust. All it is, is an ideological weapon of Israel and its supporters to immunize Israel and its supporters from criticism. It has nothing to do with the actual event.
Holocaust museum in Washington. My parents suffered too much, endured too much, for their suffering to be turned into a weapon to justify war. Just look at what happened, the build-up to the war in Iraq in Anyone who dissented—anyone who dissented from an illegal war of aggression was accused of being an appeaser of Hitler. Now can you imagine that? The Nazi holocaust has now become the main ideological weapon for justifying wars of aggression.
Every time Israel and the United States want to launch an illegal war of aggression, what do they charge? That their enemy is Hitler.
Hamas is Hitler. Every time they want to commit an illegal war of aggression, they use the Nazi holocaust to justify it. The Nazi holocaust has become the chief, the main ideological weapon for waging illegal wars of aggression.
To deny the danger would be disingenuous. Yet, moral action is never unalloyed: there are always unintended or undesired repercussions. To decide whether to proceed one must exercise judgment - hopefully good judgment but at least judgment in good faith. It is primarily the ruthless and reckless tactics of the Holocaust industry that foment anti-Semitism.
During the slave-labor negotiations, I met privately with a member of the German delegation holding unimpeachable moral credentials. For several hours he defended the Claims Conference as vehemently as I denounced it. Just before leaving, however, he turned to me and said: "I'll be honest with you. On our side, we all feel like we're being blackmailed. One can also assume that many decent Swiss privately echo these sentiments. And it is not difficult to guess what East Europeans think as the Holocaust industry, falsely claiming as its own the property of murdered Jews, presses for an acceleration in the pace of property evictions.
Incidentally, while American Jewish organizations have called for a worldwide boycott of the new Austrian government, Stuart Eizenstat, US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and the Holocaust industry's chief diplomat, entered restitution negotiations with this same Austrian government and then acclaimed it for having "shown leadership and not just in Austria but leadership to the rest of Europe and to the world about how one can reconcile with one's past, and how one can heal wounds even many decades later.
Kept under wraps in deference to "political correctness," the discontent will only fester. To avert a resurgence of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust profiteers must be publicly exposed and repudiated. Finally, I emphatically believe that the Nazi holocaust should be studied.
Yet one cannot learn anything substantive until and unless the Holocaust industry is shut down. Meaningful historical inquiry practically requires that comparisons be made. And what significant moral lesson can possibly be drawn from a dogma that reduces the Nazi holocaust to a Manichaean struggle between Gentiles and Jews? Holocaust dogmatism preempts understanding the crucial individual and historical dimensions of Nazism. In The Holocaust Industry I attempt to represent my parents' legacy.
The main lesson they imparted is that we should always compare. To make out moral distinctions between "our" suffering and "theirs" is itself a moral travesty.
0コメント