The Holocaust Shakedown
[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 25, 2000]
Norman Finkelstein must be a man of iron to be able to withstand the blows
that have been coming his way ever since the publication of his book, The
Holocaust Industry, which could as easily be entitled "The Holocaust
Racket." He is among the best of the chroniclers and critics of the
shakedown concocted by leading Jewish organizations in what has to be one of
the most massive examples of extortion ever perpetrated. Swiss banks, insurance
companies, entire industries and whole countries are targets in a scheme
supposedly devised to compensate Jewish victims and survivors of the Nazis. As
might be expected, the victims are turning out to be minor beneficiaries of a
game plan where billions of dollars raised in their names are directed instead
to leading Jewish organizations, Holocaust "memorials," and immense
institutions such as Yad Vashem in Israel.
In addition to the funds already received from foreign governments and
companies, American Jewish organizations are also exploring the possibility of
extracting funds directly from the U.S. government. In 1998, under Senate Bill
S. 1900, the U.S. Holocaust Assets Commission was formed, "with the costs
split by the interested agencies of the U.S. Government." This bill
stipulates that an authorized commission "shall develop a record of the
collection and disposition" of Jewish assets, "if such assets came
into possession or control of the Federal Government, including the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System and any Federal Reserve bank, at any
time after January 30, 1933."
The boldness of this action has not only stirred resentment among long-time
advocates for black reparations, who
demand financial recompense for slavery from the federal government, but
reinvigorates their claim that blacks are the "rightful"
beneficiaries of any such compensation.
Along with Finkelstein, other critics of the Holocaust reparations
enterprise have emerged. Anyone who has taken a course in the subject or is
familiar with its literature knows that Professor Raul Hilberg has written one
of the major texts in the field and is considered the dean of Holocaust
studies. Earlier this year, Hilberg was quoted by a Brazilian journalist as
saying: "There is something radically wrong in this exploitation because
it is an issue that should not be used to make money, and I must confess that I
found the whole affair with the Swiss banks disturbing. The Jewish-American
community is very prosperous and there is no reason for them to ask the Swiss
for money. That seems obscene to me."
Finkelstein (both of whose parents survived concentration camps) approves of
compensation only for and directly to the actual victims and sufferers of the
camps--not for their offspring or the progeny of their offspring, and certainly
not for giant bureaucratic self-appointed organizations. When an interviewer
suggested to Finkelstein that he himself deserves compensation because he is a
"second generation survivor," Finkelstein responded, "I think
such a concept is repulsive. That's simply an effort to milk the Holocaust for
another generation. If I had ever said that to my mother, she would have given
me a good smack in the face. And rightfully so."
Although writer Andrew Ross, in Salon.com, complains about the tone
of Finkelstein's book, he concedes that, "On a broader level, Finkelstein
is justified in questioning the authenticity of the emotional and other claims
staked by Holocaust keepers of the flame. The memory of this singular event has
too often been soiled by vulgarity, political calculation, hypocrisy and greed.
Former Israeli Foreign Secretary Abba Eban long ago observed: 'There's no
business like Shoah [Holocaust] business.'"
Derek Copold, writing for the Houston Review, describes how the
United States government is used as a weapon by the Holocaust overlords to get
their demands obeyed by other governments and mega-corporations. He says,
"The countries of Eastern Europe, all recovering from fifty years of
Communist oppression, are now slated for the shakedown. The process will repeat
itself. If these countries fail to take suitable action--that is, give
in--American boycotts and sanctions are threatened. Nations, who once saw the
U.S. as a liberator, now see her as the tool of extortion."
A Wall Street Journal editorial questions the logic of extracting
money from companies that used unpaid labor during the war, since so many of
these firms have changed ownership several times over the past 55 years. For
example, in Germany, Salzgitter's ownership has changed hands at least three
times since the war. The Journal editorial states, "It's an open
question whether those coughing up the money are really the ones who ought to
be paying. Perhaps an argument can be made that the democratic governments of
Germany and Austria bear some sort of obligation to atone for the evils carried
out by the Nazis in Germany's name. But the argument that companies such as
Siemens, Volkswagen and Krupps should be made to pay for using slave labor
during the war stands on a weaker foundation."
By making the claim that financial compensation belongs to "the Jewish
people," Jewish organizations justify their right to be the administrators
of all funds collected. On the website Virtual Jerusalem, Michael J.
Jordan writes about this contentious debate: "Who are the rightful heirs
to all that was lost in Europe, and who has the right to decide how the money
should be spent? Holocaust survivors and their advocates say the stolen
property and assets lost did not in fact belong to 'the Jewish people as a
whole,' but to European Jewish communities and individuals. Furthermore, they
say, it is the survivors, and they alone, who are entitled to decide the
spending priorities, not the groups that negotiated on their behalf."
George Brewer, a Holocaust researcher for the Committee for the Open
Discussion of the Holocaust (CODOH), makes the point: "There are two
ironies here. As Raul Hilberg and Norman Finkelstein have noted, the Jewish
people have been very successful in the postwar period, certainly more
successful than the peoples of Eastern Europe who were hobbled for decades with
communist governments. In this kind of case, the demand for recompense violates
not only a simple sense of justice but seems vindictive as well. It conjures
the image of a rich man bullying a pauper for money, because the pauper's
grandfather stole from the rich man's ancestor."
Christopher Hitchens, in The Nation magazine, decries what he calls
the "silent treatment" given in this country, so far, to Norman
Finkelstein's book. "In England, in Germany and elsewhere, Finkelstein's
arguments and evidence have received serious attention and been subjected to
real and fierce debate. But in the United States, where the press and the
academy are wedded to a near-uniform combination of Holocaust kitsch and
Holocaust dogma, no real argument has been permitted to arise."
Charles Glass, in the New York Press, echoes this claim about
American silence: "One surprising aspect of the debate is the assertion in
several British newspapers that The Holocaust Industry has caused controversy
on both sides of the Atlantic. Alas, not yet. Other than New York Press,
Finkelstein’s publishers Verso tell me that the rest of the American press
has virtually ignored it. In London, people may be kicking Norman Finkelstein,
but they are also kicking his ideas around. What’s going on in New
York?"
Following are excerpts from The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the
Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, by Norman Finkelstein:
I do not remember the Nazi Holocaust ever intruding on my
childhood. I do not recall a single friend (or parent of a friend) asking a
single question about what my mother and father endured. This was not a
respectful silence. It was indifference. In this light, one cannot but be
sceptical of the outpourings of anguish in later decades, after the Holocaust
industry was firmly established.
I sometimes think that American Jewry "discovering" the Nazi
Holocaust was worse than its having been forgotten. True, my parents brooded in
private; the suffering they endured was not publicly validated. But wasn't that
better than the current crass exploitation of Jewish martyrdom? Before the Nazi
Holocaust became the Holocaust, only a few scholarly studies (by Raul Hilberg,
Viktor Frankl and Ella Lingens-Reiner) were published on the subject. But this
small collection of gems is better than the shelves upon shelves of shlock that
now line libraries and bookstores.
As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother
liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: "History is
bunk". The tales of "Holocaust survivors"--all concentration
camp inmates, all heroes of the resistance--were a special source of wry
amusement in my home. My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant
at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious
answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli
state and US support for these policies. There is a personal motive as well. I
do care about the memory of my family's persecution. The current campaign of
the Holocaust industry to extort money from Europe in the name of "needy
Holocaust victims" has shrunk the moral stature of their martyrdom to that
of a Monte Carlo casino.
The term "Holocaust survivor" originally designated those who
suffered the unique trauma of the Jewish ghettos, concentration camps and slave
labour camps, often in sequence. The figure for these Holocaust survivors at
war's end is generally put at some 100,000. The number of living survivors
cannot be more than a quarter of this figure now. Because enduring the camps
became a crown of martyrdom, many Jews who spent the war elsewhere represented
themselves as camp survivors. Another strong motive behind this
misrepresentation, however, was material. The postwar German government
provided compensation to Jews who had been in ghettos or camps. Many Jews
fabricated their pasts to meet this eligibility requirement. "If everyone
who claims to be a survivor actually is one," my mother used to exclaim,
"who did Hitler kill?"
The Holocaust industry forced Switzerland into a settlement because time was
allegedly of the essence: "Needy Holocaust survivors are dying every
day." Once the Swiss signed away the money, however, the urgency
miraculously passed. More than a year after the settlement was reached there
was still no distribution plan. By the time the money is finally divvied out,
all the "needy Holocaust survivors" will probably be dead. In fact,
by last December, less than half of the $200 million "Special Fund for
Needy Victims of the Holocaust," established in February 1997, had been
distributed to actual victims. After lawyers' fees have been paid, the Swiss
monies will then flow into the coffers of "worthy" Jewish
organisations.
The Holocaust industry has always been bankrupt. What remains is to openly
declare it so. The time is long past to put it out of business. The noblest
gesture for those who perished is to preserve their memory, learn from their
suffering and let them, finally, rest in peace.
For more reviews and information on how to purchase The Holocaust
Industry, visit: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com
Copyright 1998 © Issues & Views
|
|
