This entire "Revisionist Week in Review" will be devoted to political scientist Norman Finkelstein's tour de force - in the wake of the German translation release of "The Holocaust Industry", a smallish volume that went on sale last Wednesday in an astounding 50,000 first printing.
According to Amazon.com, this dynamite little book is now #1 on the bestseller list in South-America, #1 in Austria, #3 in Switzerland, #4 in Central-America, and #5 in Jordan. Finkelstein himself reports that it is already translated into eleven languages. (!)
Next to the two Zundel Trials and its numerous subsequent Revisionist by-products such as the Leuchter Report and Rudolf Report, this is the biggest breakthrough yet for Revisionism - at least for Europe.
Finkelstein is a bit of an oxymoron, figuratively speaking - a child of "Holocaust Survivors" turned "revisionist" who hotly denies being in the revisionist camp. He is starting a tour throughout Germany in order to introduce his controversial, German language bomblet. The itsy-bitsy volume consists of scathing polemics against Jewish organisations, who, according to Finkelstein, blackmail European governments with faked data for compensation. Oy vey!
I will give you a few salient quotes to whet your appetite and then urge you to go to the David Irving website at http://www.fpp.co.uk/online.html and to Norman Finkelstein's website at www.normanfinkelstein.com and glut out on a Revisionist smorgasbord feast:
Herewith the quotes from last week:
Associated Press: A write-up by Stephen Graham titled: "Author Criticizes Holocaust Claims":
"An American author defend(s) a book in which he contends that Jewish elites exploit the plight of Holocaust victims for profit - a thesis denounced by some here who fear it will stoke Germany's resurgent far right."
"The book argues that Jewish organizations use the Holocaust to 'blackmail' European governments into paying compensation."
The book is described as
". . . peppered with language that few Germans would dare to use in public, even the minority who complain it is time for Germany to stop apologizing for its dark past."
"Jewish groups 'wildly inflate' the numbers of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein said Wednesday.
"A handful of American Jews have effectively hijacked the Holocaust to blackmail Europe," he said.
Milking the suffering of the victims, he holds, is far more damaging than the potential "danger" that "anti-semites" might get hold of his ideas and exploit them for their side.
"The main fomenter of anti-Semitism is the Holocaust industry with its ruthless extortion tactics," he said.
A Reuters release by Emma Thomasson, titled "Book on Holocaust 'industry' sets Germans squirming" brings quotes as follows:
"U.S. academic Norman Finkelstein ...urged the country that spawned the Nazis not to submit to blackmail over its past."
"'It is Germany's right to reject the use of the Nazi Holocaust as a weapon for political and economic gain,' the author told a packed news conference in Berlin."
"'The Nazi Holocaust has long ceased to be a source of moral and historical enlightenment. It has become a straight-out extortion racket,' Finkelstein said."
"'The main fomenter of anti-Semitism now is the Holocaust industry with its ruthless and reckless extortion tactics,' he said. 'The U.S. has no right to instruct Germany in morality. Instead let the Americans take a hard look at themselves.'"
"'In the case of Germany I think there is a kind of political correctness on this topic which makes difficult an open and honest discussion on the issues that I raise,' he said. 'I hope that one outcome of the book is that it will initiate a serious response from morally responsible Germans and prompt a discussion in public which currently takes place in private.'"
In a revealing "Die Welt" interview with Norman Finkelstein, we get the following hammer blows:
"The holocaust is an ideological club, used to hold Germany in a vice like grip."
"Not only does the '6 Million' figure become more untenable but the numbers of the Holocaust industry are rapidly approaching those of Holocaust deniers."
"Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud."
"In recent years, the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket."
"In what has become a mantra of the Holocaust restitution racket, this constitute(s) the greatest robbery in the history of mankind."
"'If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one,' my mother used to exclaim, 'who did Hitler kill'?"
(The Holocaust is) ". . . an ideological construction, that originally served the interests of the Jewish elite in America and has now degenerated into a money making instrument. It has become an extortion racket."
"... the figures of survivors, presented by organisations like the JCC, [Jewish Claims Conference] are falsified and secondly the JCC does not pass on the money to the victims, but puts it in its own pockets. This is double fraud. In the early nineties these organisations discovered an opportunity to shake down European Governments and now they run amok. They are pursuing blackmail and therefore they should be indicted and tried as criminals before the courts."
"A free and unrestricted discussion is important. I am not an expert on internal German conditions. But the desire for political correctness has determined the reception of my book there as well. I sympathise with the good intentions of the Germans. But good intentions have bad consequences. Certain individuals and organisations have exploited the good will of the Germans for their own evil purposes. For instance, it borders on holocaust denial what Karl Brozik, Chief of the JCC, said about the number of survivors."
On the Holocaust Memorial planned for Berlin:
"I do not favour architecture of a Stalinistic style. We don't need monumental buildings as we do not need extravaganzas in Spielberg films. The bigger a building the smaller the meaning."
On American moral arrogance:
"Americans have no right to tell the Germans how they should remember crimes that were committed by a German government. Nobody has the right to dictate to the Germans in this matter. Why doesn't America remember what it did to its Indians and to the Blacks? Why do the Britons not remember what they have done in India, the French what they have done in Algeria? The holocaust is an ideological club, used to hold Germany in a vice-like grip. This routine is just a cheap opportunity for us to escape our moral responsibility."
"(I)f Germany really wants to emulate its American idol it would have to built in the centre of Berlin a museum for America's Indians, just as America has built a Holocaust-Museum in Washington.
In Der Standard: "The Holocaust as Moral Weapon": (roughly translated)
"I learned from my parents that I was to identify with the suffering of others, and I would not have ever presumed that the suffering of others was less than my own ... The fundamental difference is between those of integrity who worry about the correct historical record and a pack of con-men and crooks who exploit the memories of the Jewish people. These people have to be exposed and neutralized. They are the main reason for today's anti-semitism."
"The Holocaust is thoroughly corrupted by money. When scientists can collect enormous sums for their testimony and when Deborah Lipstadt receives six million, primarily from Edgar Bronfman, Steven Spielberg and the American Jewish Committee, to testify against David Irving, that corrupts the Justice system as well."
"(I)t is a total abandonment of moral responsibility when Americans or Brits are riding on the coat tails of the uniqueness of the Holocaust. It turns it into a moral weapon to lessen the crimes of one's own country."
And on and on it goes! Hundreds and hundreds of write-ups!
On Irving's website http://www.fpp.co.uk/online.html you will find links to the following main articles. I invite my ZGram readers to go and to see for themselves:
Der Spiegel Feb 10, 2001: "Holocaust-Diskussion: Finkelstein nimmt nichts zurück"
Author Criticizes Holocaust Claims (Berlin press conference, Feb 8, 2001)
"Finkelstein book on Holocaust 'industry' sets Germans squirming"
Die Welt's Feb 6, 2001 interview with Finkelstein [English]
Norman Finkelstein Der Standard, Feb 7, 2001, on "Der Holocaust als moralische Waffe"
"German Television Pulls Plug On Finkelstein Documentary"
Greg Goldin in L A Weekly: "Finkelstein and the packaging of the Holocaust"
Richard Crompton in Korea Herald: "Finkelstein and the Holocaust"
Nick Cohen in the New Statesman on "The Holocaust as Show Business" (with reference to Finkelstein)
Adam Brodnick, in LA Times, Nov 5, 2000: a review of Finkelstein books, with glowing reference to Peter Novick
Berliner Zeitung Sept 29, 2000: "Paul Spiegel greift erneut Piper Verlag an"
Ostsee Zeitung: "Deutsche Historiker uneinig über Debatte zur "Holocaust-Industrie"
Washington Post: "Profit and Loss", by Steven J. Zipperstein
N Y Post: "Jewish writer condemned as a 'traitor'"
National Post: "Show survivors the money"
JTA: "WJC defends fund raiser as appropriate 'thank you'"
"Author analyzes reception in U.S. of book on Holocaust reparations"
Upstream: "Finkelstein and More: An Ongoing Debate"
In interview, (Finkelstein) accuses Elie Wiesel and Jewish leaders worldwide of a vast shakedown
Basler Zeitung: "Ist Kritik an 'Auschwitz-Geschäftemacherei' statthaft?"
"Who really Gets the Holocaust Restitution Funds?"
Norman Finkelstein writes on The Holocaust Industry
Evening Standard, London, attacks Holocaust Industry
Anthony Julius on Finkelstein: "His people cast aside"
Raul Hilberg on Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry
NY Times outrage
Berliner Zeitung: "Dachau meets Disneyland"
New York Times: "A Tale of Two Holocausts"
Finkelstein: "Will The Holocaust Industry Incite Anti-Semitism?"
"Piper-Verlag to publish Finkelstein Book"
"Buch hat in den USA ein rätselhaftes Medienecho"
Berliner Zeitung: "Finkelstein's book silenced by US media oligarchs"
"Piper Verlag refuses Jewish demands to drop Finkelstein Book"
Marcia Pally (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Aug 22, 2000): "Tanz mit der Besonderheit - Wer fürchtet Norman Finkelstein?"
Related links:
Gabriel Schoenfeld: "Holocaust Reparations -- A Growing Scandal," in Commentary Magazine, Sept. 2000 | and German translation in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sept.13, 2000: "Der Skandal um die Holocaust-Entschädigungen wird immer größer"
and the
Peter Novick controversy, on a similar book
Furthermore, on the Finkelstein website, www.normanfinkelstein.com you find the following main write-ups:
The Independent: "The Man who said too much"
The Jewish Quarterly: "Reflections on Finkelstein"
"A Skeptic on Holocaust Memorial Day"
"Auschwitz Survivor Answers Burt Neuborne"
William Rubinstein in FIRST THINGS
"Should Burt Neuborne be Disbarred?"
"Marc Ellis book review"
"An Exchange with Burt Neuborne, Lead Blackmailer for the Holocaust Industry"
L.A. Weekly
Al Ahram Weekly
Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Nation reviews The Holocaust Industry
H. Margolian review of The Holocaust Industry
Houston Review
Christopher Hitchens on US media blackout
Reply to my Critics in Germany
Salon.com Interview
Raoul Hilberg interviews
British Rabbi Ponders Elie Wiesel
Letters to Finkelstein
Holocaust Survivor Demands Justice
Survivors Protest Holocaust Industry Shakedown
Listen to Norman Finkelstein
Holocaust Profiteers Celebrate Shakedown
The Holocaust Industry and anti-semitism
The German Debate on "The Holocaust Industry"
The Economist
New Statesman Review
Index on Censorship
A Reply to Peter Novick
Book Excerpt
Jewish Chronicle
Times Higher Education Supplement
The Observer
Sunday Times (London)
Thought for the Day: (courtesy of Ernst Zundel)
"The entire post-war European order is built on the foundation of a historical lie - that of German "guilt' for the alleged "genocide" of the Jews. Finkelstein threatens that foundation and structure from within, and he does it as a Jew, protected by the "Jewish bonus."
"In the face of better knowledge, he clings to German guilt and criminality, and he pretends to believe in the German "gas chambers" - but he questions the inflated victim numbers and attacks the immorality to which the Holocaust has been reduced by his unconscionable brethren.
"Think what all this means! Entire states are threatened - postwar Germany. Austria. Poland. The Czech Republic, with its ethnic cleansing policies after World War II, based on the alleged German policies, will look like criminals themselves. Israel's founding as a state on this monumental lie - and its ruthless exploitation for political, financial and diplomatic benefit for that disgraceful terrorist state! - will be exposed in the end by what Finkelstein has set in motion with this tiny little tract. The Germans have a legend of a little sparrow that with one small toe kicks loose an avalanche! That is the meaning of this little book.
"What will that do to the Holocaust Lobby? They will either have to silence Finkelstein by arrest, trial and conviction to a long prison term - the way they did to Deckert, Töben, Walendy and others who have said and done far less - or maim or kill him, the way they have done to many others. Finkelstein is lucky that he is a Jew. No Goy would have gotten away with those kinds of quotes unscathed.
"There is a third, and eminently logical, sane option: Somewhere there must be a courageous German prosecutor with principles of honor intact to put the lying pack on notice that now the jig is up and the genie is out of the bottle. What will it take? One whopper of a Restitution Trial, as suggested by Finkelstein, to evolve into a Revisionist classic which will raise and examine every topic Revisionists the world over have researched carefully for decades! The evidence we have collected must now be used to free our spiritually supine and morally emasculated Fatherland!"