Norman Finkelstein: The Holocaust Industry - Essay Example

? and Section # of Norman Finkelstein: The Holocaust Industry The Holocaust Industry is the termused, first coined by Norman Finkelstein in his controversial book, 'The Holocaust Industry' (2000) for the ideology that there exists an industry, figurative and literally, aiming to exploit the events of the Holocaust's history as we have come to know it. The claim is that perhaps the entire incident of the Holocaust as has come into common understanding these days is perhaps not the way actual events unfolded. Rather, as Finkelstein believes, as do many others that support the idea, that it perhaps is an exploitative biased account of the historical event, told to brainwash the mass public, in an attempt to exploit the event to the benefit of those it is said to have most victimized. Who are these victims, what is the Holocaust Industry, who does it aim to benefit and how true are these claims? The terms used throughout Finkelstein's book to differentiate between the actual historical event and the popularized account of the event are Nazi Holocaust and Holocaust respectively. For ease of reference, this paper will also occasionally employ those terms. The question of whether there is any such thing as the Holocaust Industry arises from a series of questions that seem to baffle critics of the Holocaust. While the main arguments of believers against the Holocaust will be explained shortly, the driving purpose behind all arguments is that the crimes the Germans were accused of were exaggerated, and that they were painted in the light of an unnecessarily biased account. These exaggerations, in their view, included an exaggeration on the number of Jews that had died and on the methods of torture and execution used on Jewish prisoners. Their arguments center on how the Germans are unfairly targeted, with the Jewish industry garnering unnecessary sympathies and attention to their cause, in an attempt to draw from the world a guilty obligation to re-compensate for the crimes committed against them, which naturally results in monetary benefit, power and control for the forces behind the supposed Holocaust Industry. In the first part of Finkelstein's book, he centers on pointing out the flaws and problems with the account of the Holocaust we have popularly come to known. The first question he pointed out was why the 'idea' of the holocaust got popularized some twenty years after the war. Negative propaganda against the Germans was widespread throughout Europe and even some parts of Asia. Why then did it take some time for the idea to find its way to the United States? In Finkelstein's eyes this demonstrated evidence of an 'idea' or ideology being imported rather than actual news-based facts reaching the country, as the latter would not need twenty years to emerge. As Finkelstein claims, this was because the Jews realized the hold they would have on American industries, with the sympathy the holocaust would garner working to their benefit. Let it be noted that those that support the existence of the Holocaust Industry, an ideology aiming to benefit off the actual events, also acknowledge the events that took place, thereby coining the term of the Nazi Holocaust (Finkelstein, 2000) but they question the validity of the terms of the events made popular. As Finkelstein and other supporters of the idea of a Holocaust Industry claim, their most popular criticism of the account of the Nazi Holocaust is that their version of events is exaggerated in the sense where the 'industry' tries to make the convincing claim that the Jews suffered a dramatically extraordinary and unique form of torture and suffering, on a scale different to and higher than any experienced by another race in history. That the Holocaust was a unique event unlike any other in history is perhaps actually contradictory to evidence. The number of Jews killed in world war II is not the highest number of causalities any war since the history of time has seen, even if the number are taken as actual and not exaggerated, as the industry is accused of doing so. And indeed the causalities of the other side are never actually taken into account. On a war of the scale of the world war, no doubt both sides suffered damaging blows in terms of human casualties. Why then is it that the number of the Jews killed is implanted in the minds of all and in contrast, the German men, women and children that suffered are not? To look over the death of an innocent German, just because their government was responsible for the death of an innocent Jew, is not fair, and when commonly thought about makes no sense. Yet it is made to be believed that the Jews were the ones that suffered devastating amounts of damage and blows, with hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews laying down their lives, and not any bit of emphasis being made on the contrasting side of the story (Rossel, 1992). The Holocaust Industry, as claimed, aims to do so as they believe that this in a way allows them to take lives of their enemies in today's world, without coming under attack as a ruthless, bloodless nation, having never suffered for the power they are exercising. Critics and supporters of the idea of the Holocaust Industry claim that this allows them, the Israelis, and others behind the industry to put themselves in a position where they, above and unlike any other race in current times, have suffered a unique form of persecution, for which it is humanities duty to provide, and their right to receive compensation, in this way seeking political, monetary or other advantage from other powerful nations in a position where it is expected from them to deliver this justice. Another reason it is claimed the Holocaust Industry wishes to emphasize on the uniqueness of the incident is that in this way they will be able to hold the solitary and only claim to understanding the historical events and the experience of them. As they are the only ones, supposedly or actually, to have undergone it, they are the only ones in a position to judge it and decide when due to compensation has been provided or when more is still required. So why would such an industry exist, and why would there be an aimed ideology to exploit the account of such a monumentally historical event? The answer to that, Finkelstein and others claim, seems to be simple: exploitative benefits. Finkelstein himself was the descendant of Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and therefore he claimed to have personal understanding and experience of the beneficent compensation received be the Jews and the help they got from this so-called Holocaust Industry. Funds aimed at the survivors was instead taken in control of and used for the personal agendas of various groups claiming to be collecting them for these survivors, with the latter never actually seeming to benefit from them. The Germans are said to have donated millions of dollars to compensate Jewish survivors, yet not only did this money never seem to reach those survivors, the mention of this money is also by and large unknown. Finkelstein the further goes on to explain that these groups under the Holocaust Industry used this money and tried to extract more from various countries, in the same attempt to benefit the survivors, getting money, sympathy and various other allowances and yet the money never actually reaching those it was intended for. The question that is asked is that if they had such benevolent meaning at heart, why would this be so? Whether the 'Holocaust Industry' actually exists or not is of course something that will only ever be speculated over, claimed and debated. While all evidence may point in one direction, there is no way to ever guarantee what the actual truth may be and what is just a biased representation of evidence. Nonetheless, claims that supporters of the idea of a Holocaust Industry make benefit in one undoubted way: it opens the door and window for debate and discussion. To question the existence of the Holocaust and its variance from the Nazi Holocaust is a crime in many nations, which indeed gives rise to speculation itself. In a world where censorship is increasingly challenged, how can one of the biggest events of the last century be under such strict control, even where more than claims and debates, it's just a matter of questioning it? Those that are not Jewish and question it are brought under attack as well as Jews that survived it. In today's world, this is not only absurd and unheard of, but indeed it makes no sense. The claim those that support the industry and those that belong to the alleged industry are that it is to defame the memory of the dead to question the events that occurred. But is indeed it not a greater crime to leave the matter in the midst of debate and discussion? If the Holocaust occurred exactly as popular accounts claim it occurred, why would questioning it be a crime? And is it not an insult to those that died on the opposing end, who are perhaps rightly yet perhaps falsely, being made to appear as the sole perpetrators who died only as they killed? When logically thought out, perhaps the existence of a Holocaust Industry does indeed make sense. After all how else could many millions of people be killed and persecuted in a geographical area so small, and that too, in the relatively modern era of the world, where intervention from other nations would have definitely played its part in putting and end to it? Although the question and idea of the Holocaust Industry is a highly controversial and criticized debate, one cannot argue the possibility of the existence of such an industry and perhaps open debate is the only way to reach a viable conclusion and bring the debate to a rightful end, with each soul that died and each soul that survived avenged his rightful due debt. References Finkelstein, N. 'The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering', 2000 Novick, P. 'Holocaust in American Life', Mariner Books. 2003 Rossel, S. The Holocaust: The World and the Jews, 1933-1945 1992. Read More