Editing The Holocaust Industry (section)

==Synopsis==

=== The Holocaust industry ===
Finkelstein follows the Holocaust's standing in American life from the postwar years to the end of the 20th century. Before the [[Six-Day War|1967 Arab–Israeli War]], he argues, the Holocaust took little part in the lives of American Gentiles and Jews. There was, for example, at that time only a small number of books and films on the Holocaust and few works of scholarship. Not until the late 20th century, especially after the 1967 War, did the Holocaust take up its role as the foremost historical event in the American mind – so Finkelstein argues.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=12–16, 21–24}}

Finkelstein views this growing American fixation with the Holocaust through a [[Historical materialism|materialist]] lens. After World War II, he claims, the leaders of American Jewish organizations (like the [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the [[American Jewish Committee]]) understood [[Jewish assimilation|assimilation]] and access to elite power to be in their own interest. Thus these organizations distanced themselves from Israel, moderated their demands for [[Denazification|German denazification]], and collaborated with [[McCarthyism|McCarthyite investigations]]. In the 1960s, however, the American government began a friendlier relationship with the Israeli government; and the interests of American Jewish leaders changed. Their organizations began openly to support Israel and espouse a Holocaust ideology that emphasized (1) [[Holocaust uniqueness debate|the Holocaust as a unique historical event]] and (2) the Holocaust as the climax of an eternal anti-Semitism. Finkelstein argues that this Holocaust ideology does not fit with academic Holocaust scholarship. Rather it serves to defend Israel and American Jewish leaders from criticism.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=16–24, 41–42}}

=== ''The Holocaust Industry'' Highlights Bad History and Fraudulent Mémoires ===
Many popular Holocaust books by contemporary writers have, in Finkelstein's view, little scholarly merit. He faults [[Deborah Lipstadt|Deborah Lipstadt's]] 1993 book ''[[Denying the Holocaust]]'' for expanding the definition of [[Holocaust denial]] to include questioning its uniqueness. He writes that [[Daniel Goldhagen]], in his 1996 book ''[[Hitler's Willing Executioners|Hitler’s Willing Executioners]]'', inaccurately characterizes the entire German people as eager Jew murderers driven by pathological hatred.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Finkelstein |first=Norman |date=1997-08-01 |title=Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s 'Crazy' Thesis: A Critique of Hitler’s Willing Executioners |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/i224/articles/norman-finkelstein-daniel-jonah-goldhagen-s-crazy-thesis-a-critique-of-hitler-s-willing-executioners.pdf |journal=New Left Review |issue=I/224 |pages=39–87}}</ref><ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=63–69}}

The [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum]] in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1993, gets sharp criticism from Finkelstein.  Why, he asks, did the victims of the Holocaust get a national museum but not the victims of [[Slavery in the United States|American slavery]] or the [[Native American genocide in the United States|American Indian extermination]]? He also argues that the Gentile victims of the Holocaust – especially the Romani victims of the [[Romani Holocaust|Porajmos]] – got only token recognition in the museum. More generally he claims that museum's leadership is committed to political support of the Israeli state, pointing to its praise of pro-Zionist literature and its condemnation of anti-Zionist literature.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sridhar |first=C. R. |date=2006 |title=Historical Amnesia: The Romani Holocaust |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4418585 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=41 |issue=33 |pages=3569–3571 |issn=0012-9976}}</ref><ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=72–78}}

Finkelstein takes book reviewers and historians to task for praising two Holocaust memoirs which he reveals to be fraudulent on page 55 of the book: ''[[The Painted Bird]]'' by [[Jerzy Kosiński]] (1965) and ''[[Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood|Fragments]]'' by Binjamin Wilkomirski (1995).<ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=55–62}}

=== Swiss banks ===
In 1995 the [[World Jewish Congress]] initiated a [[World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks|lawsuit against Swiss banks]] to recover the assets in accounts left dormant by victims of the Holocaust. Finkelstein accuses the leaders of Jewish organizations of exaggerating the size of the assets and of using Swiss payouts to fund their own pet projects. He is equally critical of a similar lawsuit directed at German banks and of attempts to get monetary compensation from the Polish government.<ref name="Finkelstein2003" />{{Rp|pages=81–133}}