If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one, who did Hitler kill?

14.01.2015 um 12:42

Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, (Verso, 2000)

Norman Finkelstein’s book, which is dedicated to his family, is guided by his parents’ legacy. Both of his parents were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Thus, the author has a personal interest in preserving the historical record of the Nazi holocaust. He is motivated to pen these essays because of his revulsion of the ideological abuse of the Nazi holocaust. Finkelstein shows how the Holocaust industry transformed the Nazi holocaust into an ideological construct. While Finkelstein is by no means the first to point out the commercialization and the political exploitation of the Nazi holocaust, he has written the most critical and revealing analysis of the Holocaust Industry. It is a major contribution to understanding its political and economic foundation. It traces the evolution and the organization of this industry. The book consists of three hard-hitting essays. The author thoroughly documents the Holocaust Industry’s distortions, deceptions, and its use of the memory of the Nazi holocaust for advancing its favorite political objectives.

Finkelstein’s third essay titled, “The Double Shakedown,” is his most important contribution in this book. The number of survivors of the Nazi holocaust at the end of the war ranged from 60,000 to 100,000. Taking the upper bound of the original estimate of approximately 100,000 survivors of the Nazi holocaust at the time of the liberation of the camps and further assuming that one-fourth of the initial number of survivors is alive today, this would mean that are about 25,000 survivors in 2000 (the time of publication of the book). Finkelstein’s mother used to ask, "If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one, who did Hitler kill?" The Holocaust Industry exaggerates the number of survivors alive today. For instance, the Holocaust Industry has claimed that 135,000 former Jewish slave workers are alive today. This would imply that about 600,000 were alive after the war. That would mean about half a million less dead than the total number of 5.2 million victims of the Nazi holocaust. Thus, unwittingly the Holocaust Industry lends supports to the claims of the deniers of the Nazi holocaust.

Finkelstein’s analysis of how the reparation issue has been played out provides value insights into the machinations of the Holocaust Industry. Germany paid US$60 billion of reparations. While this does not in any way mitigate Nazi crimes, if compared to the United States’ failure to pay for the damages inflicted on the Vietnamese, this stands out as an honorable example. Germany reached three different agreements: with individual claimants, with the state of Israel, and with the Conference of Jewish Claims. The Claims conference was supposed to assist those who fell through the cracks and those who received only minimal compensation. However, one learns the sad story of Finkelstein’s mother, a survivor of Majdanek camp and slave labor camps. She received just US$3,500 in compensation. The agreement that the German authorities reached with the Claims Conference stipulated that the monies would be assigned solely to those Jewish survivors who had been inadequately compensated by German courts. However, the Claims conference violated this agreement and used these funds for what they called the rehabilitation of communities. It provided money for some individuals: rabbis and “outstanding Jewish leaders.” The leaders of the Holocaust Industry organizations were more interested in helping themselves than the victims of the Nazi holocaust. The monies received were also used for Zionist purposes. Finkelstein also shows that the Holocaust Industry has provided a lot of lucrative opportunities for big shots. Former US Senator Alfonsi D’Amato pocketed US$350 per hour. In six months he bagged US$103,000. Former US Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger netted an annual salary of US$300,000 for his services to the Holocaust Industry. (Eagleburger was the man who after 9-11 told CNN: "There is only one way to begin to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately directly involved in this thing.) Some of the activities of the ambulance-chasing Holocaust Industry lawyers are truly amazing. Edward Fagan charged US$600 per hour. One lawyer obtained $2,400 for reading Tom Bower’s Nazi Gold! Hence, Finkelstein compares the Holocaust Industry to an extortion racket. It consists of a “double shakedown” that tries to get the maximum amount of money that it can extract out of European countries and to reduce payments Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust. The Holocaust industry’s threat of economic boycotts against the Swiss companies was effective. Swiss banks were particularly vulnerable to the threats of US boycott. As a result, in a class action settlement the Swiss agreed to pay US$1.25 billion to avoid the threat of economic sanctions and long and costly legal battle with the Holocaust Industry. The Holocaust Industry’s alleged urgency of reparations and concerns for the victims vanished as soon as the Swiss banks signed agreements and doled out the cash. It was decided that “worthy” organizations would get the money. Following the Holocaust Industry’s skimming off Switzerland, German companies quickly reached a settlement, perhaps fearing that otherwise they would be facing boycotts. Finkelstein opines that the Claims conference again violated the agreement signed with Germany.

Read the rest here: The Exploitation of the Nazi holocaust