Israeli Police delegation joins March of the Living

Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino: "We will march in the place designed to destroy the Jewish people, standing tall in our Israel Police uniforms, and we will vow: Never again" • Delegation reunites Holocaust survivor with Polish woman who saved him.

 An Israel Police delegation of 185 policemen, officers and cadets arrived in Poland to take part in Monday's annual March of the Living. The police officers, led by Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, will march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, which together comprised the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II.

"I was given the privilege of marching with you," Danino said to the delegation on Sunday. "We will march with the Polish police commissioner into the Nazi inferno. With feelings of pain and shock permeating all of us, we will also feel the pride and true honor of belonging to the police force of a Jewish state, fiercely defending the security and the values of democracy, equality and justice for all citizens, regardless of religion, race and gender. We will march in the place designed to destroy the Jewish people, standing tall in our Israel Police uniforms, and we will vow: Never again."

Danino went on to say that "Participating in the March of the Living further demonstrates to all those present the importance of the commitment and responsibility -- to remember and never to forget."

Earlier in their trip, the delegation visited Treblinka extermination camp, where most of Warsaw's Jews were murdered, as were hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over Europe. The delegation then went to Majdanek concentration camp, visited  Krakow  and on Sunday, went on a tour through the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

While visiting Auschwitz, the police officers heard the testimony of 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Michael (Miki) Goldman. Goldman was taken to Auschwitz when he was 14. His parents and siblings were killed, but Goldman managed to escape during a death march and was taken in by a Polish family.

Later, he moved to Israel and joined the police force. Goldman joined Bureau 6, the special police unit dedicated to interrogating Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.

The police delegation surprised Goldman by inviting Stepha Razner, the Polish girl who took Goldman in the day after he escaped from Auschwitz, saving his life. Goldman and Razner had an emotional reunion decades after their first fateful meeting.

In recent years, the Israel Police has sent four delegations annually to Poland. "Policemen who participate in the march come back as changed individuals. They are much more sensitive to people and they have a new understanding of how important the work they do is," Police Human Resources Division head Maj. Gen. Yaron Be'eri said.

Each year, thousands of people -- including public figures -- from Israel and around the world, participate in March of the Living
.

The Holocaust Industry

The Holocaust Industry

2011. Search the Jewish magazine Commentary, which is a kind experienced boom of the seventies, shows 993 articles on the subject of the Holocaust. Daily newspaper Jerusalem Post, Israel's best-selling English newspaper, the Holocaust tackles in 1495 articles. Holocaust industry obviously does not stop its production facilities. As the whole story began, when and why they actually appeared intensely the memory of the Holocaust?

Norman G. Finkelstein in his book The Holocaust Industry explains the circumstances in which the Jews decided to "remember" the Holocaust and the way it has thrived so-called Holocaust industry, ie the purposes for which the Holocaust is used in the past few decades. Finkelstein is an American-Jewish historian, a Ph.D. from Princeton, Department of Political Science. For many years studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the author of six books. Finkelstein public appearances caused numerous controversies about his life was taken and documentary American Radical. His parents survived the Holocaust, which is often mentioned in order to gain the legitimacy, because, unfortunately, otherwise hardly criticize the policies of Israel and American Jewish elites.

                                                Finkelstein, artthreat.com


  The Holocaust and the United States - silence 

According to Finkelstein, the Nazi Holocaust is almost the only issue that still has echoes in the university classroom, but until recently the Nazi Holocaust is hardly existed in American life. Not just Americans in general, but also American Jews ignored the Nazi Holocaust. The standard explanation is that the Jews were traumatized by the Nazi Holocaust, and suppressed the memory of him. But Finkelstein says in the conclusion there is no evidence. The real reason for public silence was conformist politics of American Jewish leadership and the political climate of post-war America. And on the domestic and international level American Jewish elites have adapted to the official U.S. policy. Germany has since 1949 been a crucial U.S. ally in the conflict with the Soviet Union, so the final solution was taboo for the American Jewish elite. American Judaism appealing to the Nazi holocaust in a specific context - in an attack on the USSR, there was an equalization of the Nazi final solution to the Russian anti-Semitism, which was reflected in statements such as"Stalin would succed where Hitler failed".
    
  Reversal in 1967 - a phenomenon of the Holocaust Industry

Everything changed with the Arab-Israeli war in June 1967. The standard explanation for this transformation is that the extreme isolation and vulnerability of Israel during the war in June revived memories of the Nazi extermination. However, the position of the leading American Jewish organization has followed the official U.S. policy in its views toward Israel. Only 1 in 20 American Jews had a desire to visit Israel before June 1967 Regardless of their political orientation, the American Jewish intellectuals proved to be especially indifferent to the fate Isarel. Ironically, as the only Noam Chomsky and Hannah Arendt commented on the position of Israel before 1967. Then came the June war. Under the impression of the superiority of his forces, the U.S. has decided to do Israel, its strategic confidant. Zionism arose from the assumption that assimilation is futile dream, that the Jews are always seen as a potential unfair foreigners. To resolve this dispute Zionists have tried to build a homeland for Jews.

                                   Israeli-Palestinian conflict, flickr.com



Favorite position again after the birth of the Jews in 1967 was implicitly comparing the open support of Israel, who allegedly threatened from all sides, with the timidity of American Jews during the Holocaust. In order to protect its strategic footing, American Jewish elites "remembered" the Holocaust. Holocaust industry emerged only after a striking display of military superiority and flourished in parallel with the final Israeli triumphalism. Ideological altered, the Holocaust has proven to be the perfect weapon to disable the criticism of Israel. Finkelstein argues that the concerns expressed in remembrance of the Holocaust was just as artificial and expressed concern for the fate of Israel. 
"When the Holocaust was the freshest in the memory of American leaders, the first 25 years after the end of the war, the U.S. was the least ready to assist Israel. U.S. to help Israel has not changed from a small splash in the real flood in the moment when Israel is considered weak and vulnerable, but when he showed his strength in the Six Day War. "

  The Holocaust and identity - "Jews are better"

Each identity is grounded in a particular historical oppression. Accordingly, the Jews sought the identity of the Holocaust. However, among groups that have declared that they are victims, including African Americans, Latinos, indigenous American, only Jews are not inferior in American society. In fact, identity politics and the Holocaust have not caught root among the Jews because of the victim, but because they are not victims. Just as many Jews were kept at a safe distance from Israel when it was inappropriate and became born again Zionists when it became an advantage, tao many concealed their ethnic identity until it was inappropriate to become re-born Jews when became an advantage. Finkelstein says the story of worldly success of the Jews with the main, perhaps only the dogma of their newfound Jewish identity - the mentality of "the Jews are better". The Holocaust has been used to justify the Jewish choseness.

                                           Holocaust industry, google.com


  "The new anti-Semitism" and tensions with African-Americans

By the end of the 1970s anti-Semitism was no longer a major factor in American society. However, Jewish leaders began to alarm the fact that American Jews are threatened by a powerful "new antisemitism". For American Jewish organizations that designed the new anti-Semitism hysteria for Multi-link was useful. Raise the price of Israel as a last resort if they need it to American Jews. Due to shortage of anti-Semitism erupted in recent years a strong rivalry between the major Jewish "defense organization" - ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. What are American Jews achieved greater material success, the more they neared the political right. The Jews were all conservative in politics and the economy, which has led to rising tensions between Jews and African Americans. "It is apparent that the evocation of persecution from the past draws attention to the criticism in the present. In addition, the system envisioned Holocaust anti-Semitism as a strictly irrational hatred of Jews. Exclude the possibility that bias against the Jews can be grounded in a real conflict of interest. "manage those who are least able to defend yourself, it's real content returned to the courage of American Jewish organizations, which could be seen in relation to African-Americans, says Finkelstein.

                       Finkelstein, American radical, rottentomatoes.com


Holocaust industry was born in 1967. He lives to the fullest the last 44 years. When you are going to die and can even die in a world that is constantly, for various reasons, frantically grabs for the past? Each new wheel in the production of this industry, the new depreciation and shameless prostitution of all those to whom the Holocaust had nothing to do with political profitability and financial success, those whose lives were erased painful move, suddenly and without question.

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The Holocaust Industry

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a 2000 book by Norman G. Finkelstein that argues that theAmerican Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.^[1]According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish cultureand the authentic memory of the Holocaust.

Contents

 

• 1 Finkelstein on the book
• 2 Chapters
• 3 Other topics
  • 3.1 Fraudulent writings on the Holocaust
  • 3.2 Holocaust Industry defends itself
  • 3.3 Other genocides
  • 3.4 Other forms of Holocaust denial
  • 3.5 Holocaust deniers in real life
• 4 Reviews and critiques
• 5 Publishing history
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 External links

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".^[2] 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."^[2] 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.^[2]

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".^[3]

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 panned in the US. He sees The New York Times as the main promotional vehicle of the "Holocaust industry", and notes 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".(p. 11)
• 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-Semitictendency in Europe. Finkelstein asserts that these concepts became central to the "Holocaust Industry", but that neither figures in scholarship of the Nazi Holocaust.(p. 13)
• 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^[4] to nearly 1 million^[5] 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.

The second (2003) edition contained 100 pages of new material, primarily in chapter 3 on the World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks. Finkelstein set out to provide a guide to the relevant sections of the case. He feels that the presiding judge elected not to docket crucial documents, and that the Claims Resolution Tribunal could no longer be trusted. Finkelstein claims the CRT was on course to vindicate the Swiss banks before it changed tack in order to "protect the blackmailers' reputation".

Other topics

Fraudulent writings on the Holocaust

Finkelstein describes two known frauds, that of The Painted Bird by Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski and Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski, and how they were defended by people even after they'd been exposed. He identifies some of these people as members of the "Holocaust Industry", and notes that they also support each other. Elie Wiesel supported Kosinski; Israel Gutman and Daniel Goldhagen (see below) supported Wilkomirski; Wiesel and Gutman support Goldhagen.

Holocaust Industry defends itself

Finkelstein has published heavy criticisms of several books in his career, as he did to Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Johnah Goldhagen, which he calls "replete with gross misinterpretations of source material and internal contradictions", and says "the book is devoid of scholarly value". Independently, Ruth Bettina Birn (the world's leading authority on the archives that Goldhagen had consulted and chief historian for War Crimes with the Canadian Department of Justice) did the same - she and Finkelstein worked together on A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. Goldhagen refused the journal's invitation for a full rebuttal, and instead enlisted a London law firm to sue Birn and the Cambridge University Press. Protests were made to Birn's employer, calling her "a member of the perpetrator race" (she is German-born), prompting an official investigation of her.(p. 66)^{[citation needed]}

Other genocides

Finkelstein scathingly compared 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". (1 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 he was "angrily compared ... to a holocaust denier" by Israel Charny, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.^[6]

In August 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.^[7] However, Wiesel's organization asserted there would be no legal "basis for reparations or territorial claims", anticipating Turkish anxieties that it could prompt financial or property claims. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League announced: "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide".^[8]

Other forms of Holocaust denial

According to Finkelstein, Elie Wiesel characterizes any suggestion that he has profited from the "Holocaust Industry", or even any criticism at all, as Holocaust denial.^[9] 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^[10] – and the most "insidious" forms of Holocaust denial are "immoral equivalencies", denying the uniqueness of The Holocaust.^[11] 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".^[12]

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. Holocaust deniers have as much influence in the US as the Flat Earth Society (p. 69). Finkelstein believes there to be only one "truly mainstream" holocaust denier—Bernard Lewis, who was convicted in France of denying the Armenian genocide.^[13] Since Lewis is pro-Israel, "this instance ... raises no hackles in the United States."

Reviews and critiques[edit]

The critical response has been varied. In addition to prominent supporters, such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, the Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg is on record as praising Finkelstein's book:

I refer now to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks, and the other claims pertaining to forced labor. I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained political scientist, has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough."^[14]

Others have argued that The Holocaust Industry is an unscholarly work that promotes antisemitic stereotypes. For example, 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."^[15]

Historian Omer Bartov^[16] criticized Finkelstein's notion of Holocaust profiteers as a "novel variation of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion '". In reviewing the first edition of the book, Bartov wrote:

I find so striking about The Holocaust Industry is that it is almost an exact copy of the arguments it seeks to expose. It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority.

Here he [Finkelstein] combines an old-hat 1960s view of Israel as the outpost of American Imperialism with a novel variation on the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which warned of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Now, however, the Jewish conspiracy is intended to "shake down" (his favorite phrase) such innocent entities as Swiss banks, German corporations and East European owners of looted Jewish property, all in order to consolidate Jewish power and influence without giving the real survivors of the genocide anything but empty rhetoric.

This book is, in a word, an ideological fanatic's view of other people's opportunism, by a writer so reckless and ruthless in his attacks that he is prepared to defend his own enemies, the bastions of Western capitalism, and to warn that "The Holocaust" will stir up an anti-Semitism whose significance he otherwise discounts. Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious. Finkelstein can now be said to have founded a Holocaust industry of his own."^[17]

Finkelstein was to later blame Bartov's review for the poor US sales of the book.^[18]

University of Chicago Professor Peter Novick, whose work Finkelstein described as providing the "initial stimulus" for The Holocaust Industry,^[19] asserted in the July 28, 2000 Jewish Chronicle (London) that the book is replete with "false accusations", "egregious misrepresentations", "absurd claims" and "repeated mis-statements" ("A charge into darkness that sheds no light"). Finkelstein replied to the "hysterical" allegations by Novick on his homepage.^[20]

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 post 1967.^[21]

Andrew Ross reviewing the book for Salon magazine wrote:

On the issue of reparations, he barely acknowledges the wrongs committed by the Swiss and German institutions — the burying of Jewish bank accounts, the use of slave labor — that gave rise to the recent reparations drive. The fear that the reparations will not wind up in the hands of those who need and deserve them most is a legitimate concern. But the idea that survivors have been routinely swindled by Jewish institutions is a gross distortion. The chief reason why survivors have so far seen nothing of the $1.25 billion Swiss settlement, reached in 1998, is that U.S. courts have yet to rule on a method of distribution. On other reparations and compensation settlements, the Claims Conference, a particular bete noire of Finkelstein, says that it distributed approximately $220 million to individual survivors in 1999 alone."^[22]

Finkelstein responded to his critics in the foreword to the second edition:

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."

Publishing history[edit]

Publishing history of The Holocaust Industry:

• 2000; First published, by Verso Books (London) 150 p. Hardcover, ISBN 1-85984-773-0 (Blue star of David on cover)
• 2001; First paperback edition, Verso. ISBN 1-85984-323-9 (Yellow star of David on cover)
• 2003; 2 edition, expanded; 286 p., paperback, Verso. ISBN 1-85984-488-X (Red star of David on cover)

See also[edit]

• Norman Finkelstein
• Nazi gold
• Claims Conference
• The Holocaust in American Life
• Jewish lobby
• Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

References[edit]

1. Jump up^ See article on Norman Finklestein's webpage.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b c The Holocaust Industry, p. 5-8.
3. Jump up^ The Holocaust Industry, p. 3.
4. Jump up^ Henry Friedlander, "Darkness and Dawn in 1945: The Nazis, the Allies, and the Survivors," in US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1945 - the Year of Liberation (Washington: 1995), 11-35. Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.81.
5. Jump up^ 1997 study commissioned by the Israeli Prime Minister's office.(p.67)
6. Jump up^ Peres stands accused over denial of `meaningless' Armenian Holocaust". Findarticle archive of Independent 18th April 2001. Verified 22nd Jun 2008.
7. Jump up^ Nobel Laureates Call For Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, April 10, 2007. Verified 22nd Jun 2008.
8. Jump up^ "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. Armenian Weekly, September 15, 2007. Verified 22nd Jun 2008.
9. Jump up^ Wiesel, All Rivers, 333, 336. Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.70.
10. Jump up^ Lipstadt, Denying, 6, 12, 22, 89-90. Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.70.
11. Jump up^ Lipstadt, Denying, chapter 11. Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.70.
12. Jump up^ "A New Serbia" in New Republic (17 May 1999). Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.70.
13. Jump up^ "France Fines Historian Over Armenian Denial," inBoston Globe (22 June 1995), and "Bernard Lewis and the Armenians," in Counterpunch (16–31 December 1997). Cited in the 2003 edition of HI on p.69.
14. Jump up^ Jon Wiener,"Giving Chutzpah New Meaning,"TheNation.com (June 23, 2005). Further statements made by Hilberg on the work are available at NormanFinkelstein.com Raul Hilberg interviews on The Holocaust Industry & Finkelstein (2000/2001).
15. Jump up^ http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?PG=3&AR=11
16. Jump up^ Brown University German Studies
17. Jump up^ From The New York Times, Book Review Desk A Tale of Two Holocausts August 6, 2000 (archived).
18. Jump up^ From interview with Ha'aretz March 30, 2001 The Finkelstein polemic "Finkelstein attributes the book's flop in the U.S. to a lethal book review by Israeli scholar Omer Bartov that appeared in the New York Times Book Review."
19. Jump up^ The Holocaust Industry, p. 4.
20. Jump up^ http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=165
21. Jump up^ All Quiet; Were postwar American Jews really ‘silent’ about the Holocaust? BY ADAM KIRSCH | 7:00 am June 23, 2009, Tablet Magazine [1]
22. Jump up^ From Salon Magazine September 6, 2000 REVIEW: 'THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY' by Andrew Ross viaarchive.org

External links[edit]

• Author's web page for the book^{[dead link]}
• Akram, Tanweer (October 2002). The Holocaust Industry book review 15 (11). p. 59.
• http://www.crt-ii.org/index_en.phtm
• Final Report on the Work of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland (CRT-I) Zurich, 5 October 2001
• normanfinkelstein.com
• "The business of death" (Extracted from The Holocaust Industry by Norman G Finkelstein), The Guardian (Wednesday July 12, 2000).
• "Swiss toll II", (Extracted from The Holocaust Industry by Norman G Finkelstein), The Guardian (Thursday July 13, 2000).
• "It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There" -- World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure (Raul Hilberg and Avi Shlaim speak in support of Norman Finkelstein's scholarship and "The Holocaust Industry" specifically.)

Categories: 

• 2000 books
• Holocaust charities and reparations
• American political books
• Books critical of Zionism
• Holocaust historiogr