Talk:The Holocaust: Difference between revisions

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Moved

Why were the Jews so central to the evil brutality of the Nazis? It is not that any scholar of the Holocaust needs to believe in God: far from it. But it is, perhaps, necessary that any serious scholar needs to believe that the Nazis believed in God, and the relationship of the Jews - through time and history - to that God. The SS Ahnenerbe (Cultural Research Unit) were involved in establishing a secular faith - man as superman - the Fuhrer eventually to displace a deconstructed God. The history of God in Western Civilisation is indeed the history of the Jews - a Chosen Race, set apart by God. The Nazi's evil demanded that the Jews become the Selected Race - a race thrown down by man. The new (evil) Nazi Millenium was to have a man as the uttermost absolute: all aspiration, all time, all experience, all history, and all meaning were to extend through him to posterity. Previously, (to the Nazi mind) this had been fulfilled by the God of the Jews: God entered human time, human history, and human experience through the Jews. Any man that might take that function of the Godhead onto himself might (in all its evil of application) as the Nazis attempted, push Jewish history aside (and the Jewish Nation too). The concept of Endlosung was born, commissioned and executed. This unthinkable evil was stopped on January 27th - with the liberation of the camps. Hitler was prevented from becoming the secular God as envisioned in Nietszche's "Man as Superman" phrase. So, we can rest assured that there will be no further attempts to wrest the history of God from the Jews ever again...

See From Here originator

Take a proud nation, with a strong identity, that has just lost a war. Take it to, say, a railway-carriage in the backwoods of Versailles, 1919, and make it pay the most swingeing war-reparations, which will eventually lead to it paying for its bread in notes by the barrow-load. It endures a huge identity-crisis; its on its knees. Let's wrench back our self-esteem they hear someone cry, and they forgive the most horrendous of crimes as that nation pulls itself up by its bootstraps once more. But who has the strongest identity known to mankind? Why, the Jews! Let's get our once proud identity back in shape - we'll have something of theirs - if not their exact identity, at least its potency and strength, the fact that it has stood the test of millenia, and is as strong as ever. Now who, do you suppose, in turning Germany into this identity-crisis in the first-place, unwittingly sewed the seeds of Endlosung? A man with an overwhelming crisis in identity will often reach for the strongest idiom of self that he can imagine, in order to compensate for his weakness; it is often messianic. Are there parallels to be drawn between a mere man and an overthrown state - "man as superman"?

See From Here 12:55, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

here, while in the process of removing any overt POV or essay type remarks. Atorpen 22:43 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Good move, Atorpen, I was considering doing something about it when I saw it in Current Events. It's not too bad, but it does need some work. -- Zoe

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Two requests: 1) Could someone put a caption on the picture in that article? I have no idea where it was taken or when, and it could use a little bit of context. 2) Could we include the total number of people killed in the Holocoaust somewhere in the head of the article? From the WWII article, I see 12 million, but perhaps other people could confirm that? Dachshund 17:06 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)

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There are two different translations of the word Shoah in this article: one says 'destruction', the other 'desolation'. Which is right? -- Heron

My hebrew translator says "devastation" which is a synonym of "desolation" (but I'm no serious expert) -- Rotem Dan 16:13 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Shoah can be used to mean catastrophe, but its original meaning was "destruction by fire." Danny

Thanks, Rotem Dan and Danny. Sorry to quibble, but Google told me a different story: most web sites give the original meaning as 'whirlwind' (e.g. http://www.zipple.com/weeklyzipple/weeklyhebrew.shtml), followed by the more general 'catastrophe'. -- Heron

Shoah in Hebrew means "burnt offering". Holocoste, in French, means the same thing. Len

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Does anyone have a source supporting the 7 million figure? All the academic work on this (neatly summerized here) seems to put the total at between 4.8 & 6.3 million. - Efghij 17:00, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think the sources in the link are the most reliable and should be used. FearÉIREANN 18:16, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Here is one source:

The Jerusalem Post. Tuesday, May 20, 1997 - 13 Iyar 5757

British documents: 7 million died in Holocaust

By DOUGLAS DAVIS

LONDON (May 20) - The number of Jews killed in the Holocaust might have been closer to seven million than six million, according to previously classified World War II intelligence documents released by Britain's Public Record Office yesterday. The documents, which indicate that the Holocaust started much earlier than previously believed, are based on German messages that were intercepted and deciphered at the top-secret British wartime code-breaking facility at Bletchley Park. The decoding was performed by a machine known as Ultra, whose existence was itself classified until relatively recently. Intelligence produced by the machine is believed to have shortened the length of the war by up to three years.

The documents released yesterday provide details of the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews as early as June 1941, several months before the "Final Solution" is generally believed to have been implemented. The documents provide horrifying early detail of the systematic campaign to destroy European Jewry and are expected to reopen the debate over when the Allied leaders first learned about the destruction of European Jewry. The documents are also liable to again raise questions about why so little was apparently done by the Allies to limit the genocide.

Most of the executions were carried out by German police units, known as Ordnungspolizei, or "Orpo," in conjunction with the SS. The Germans clearly feared that the messages might be intercepted and executions were therefore classified under the euphemisms, "Cleansing Operations" and "Action According to the Usage of War." The decoded messages showed that victims were described as Jews, Jewish plunderers, Jewish Bolsheviks and Russians soldiers. According to the messages, hundreds of thousands of Jews were rounded up and systematically slaughtered in the months following the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

Messages by the Ordnungspolizei ceased in September 1941 after Daluege warned commanders that the enemy might be intercepting the messages and ordered them to send all future reports to Berlin by courier. The British intelligence branch responsible for intercepting wartime German messages has already released a large number of documents, the existence of which were revealed only in the early 1980s, but intercepted messages of the Ordnungspolizei have been retained until now. It is believed a decision was taken to release them because copies of some documents were unclassified by the US last year, provoking charges of a British coverup. Evidence of the scale of the Holocaust is contained in an appendix of "British Intelligence in the Second World War," the official war history by Professor Sir Harry Hinsley and three co-authors. According to Hinsley, the British code-breaking teams reported references to Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and seven other concentration camps from the spring of 1942 to February 1943.

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When dealing with numbers of this magnitude, my tendency is to avoid playing number games at all. If it was seven million and not six million, does that make the tragedy 16 percent worse? I question whether that is dignifying to the victims, each of whom was an individual, so that each was a tragic loss. To paraphrase Stalin, "Ten is a tragedy; ten million is a statistic." Still, if we must play some number game, I would tend to the more conservative estimates until there is unrefutable proof--and not hypothesis--that the numbers were higher. One factor that has increased the numbers of Einsatzgruppen victims somewhat is information from the former Soviet Union, which only became available recently. Still, the numbers do not total one million. As such, in brief, I would leave the number as 5.8-6.1 million until there was some remarkable evidence (not supposition) to the contrary. Danny 23:31, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I reverted to the generally accepted figures. Unless some serious scholarly work indicates otherwise, I think that is what we should keep. Danny

Please note the link above. There are a number of scholarly works that place the number at between 5 million and 5.8 million, and at least one that says it could have been anywhere between 4.8 & 6.3 million. - Efghij 11:20, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Not a bad list, however, Reitlinger's number is premature (look at the date) and did not account for all the information available (and not available because of political tensions in Europe). THe fact that the number was cited bysome popular reference work does not give it authority. Similarly, the Nuremberg numbers (5.7) may also have been premature. Yisrael Gutman's numbers are probably the most accurate, though even he will admit that he did not have access to all the Soviet records when he did the encyclopedia. Important sources missing from the list are Hilberg and Davidowicz, who would also corroborate Gutman's numbers. I can deal with "just under 6 million." Would that work for you? Danny 11:40, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think the safest aproach would be to take Gutman's numbers at face value, but note that recent developments have incated the total may be significatly higher. - Efghij 15:18, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I could deal with that, but I would not say "significantly." Personally I would prefer to say "may be slightly higher." Danny 15:34, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We are talking about as many as 900,000 people here. I don't think "slightly" would be approriate. How about we just stick to "may be higher". - Efghij 15:45, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am very skeptical it would be that much higher. Danny 17:27, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maybe not, but it is possible that it is in the hundreds of thousands. - Efghij

Danny has a good point. If you say that that the actual count may be "significantly" higher, to many people this word often is interpreted as meaning that the actual amount may be twice as much. Maybe we could say that the numbers "may be somewhat higher"? RK

I guess "significantly" is no good either. I think "somewhat" would be fine. - Efghij 16:02, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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I took out 6 million for the Jews exterminated. I believe they were exterminated, however, after reading many sources with conflicting numbers, it would irresposible to quote numbers of Jews that were inaccurate. Please research this number and quote your sources for and against the amount previously listed, 6 million. Since this is a touchy subject, I believe it's important both sides are heard, even if one side may seem to take an anti-semetic position.Nostrum 09:04, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I put it back in (with a couple of mods). "according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves" says it all and the '5-6 million' range is also the one quoted by nearly every single source I have come across. Only holocaust deniers seriously dispute this range. --mav 10:16, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As for the questions asked, what kind of documentation would you like to see? There are over a million confiscated Nazi documents archived in Berlin, transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials, including the Einsatzgruppen trial, and works by historians that analyzed this information. Götz Aly, Omer Bartov, and Yisrael Gutman are a German, an American, and an Israeli historian who did this. Jürgen Förster has written about the role of the Wehrmacht in the mass killings by the Einsatzgruppen in the former USSR, and there are literally thousands more books, articles, photographs, videotaped testimonies (some of Lanzmann's Shoah testimony by victims and perpetrators is remarkable). Just let me know. Danny 11:50, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I also don't think it's a good idea to take out the "6 million" figure, merely because it's an estimate -- or even if it's disputed. We can always create a section or separate article on the estimation of the number of victims of the Holocaust. Anyway, the "000,000" part of "6,000,000" ought to ring a bell with anyone who understands numbers: it's clearly an estimate to the nearest million.

Moreover, the ideas that the Holocaust never occurred or has been blown out of proportion are best discussed in Holocaust denial, aren't they? --Uncle Ed 17:33, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think 6 million is a fair number. FearÉIREANN 18:32, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think it should be worded as "typically accepted" number being 6 million, but there should be reference and evidence of it varying. Remember Neutral Point of View, we need to equally present both sides, no MATTER what each says and validity of each. If your side is supported by more than you, you have a equal right to be heard.12-7-03 User:patcat88

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I replaced "the extermination of most of Europe's Jewish population", with "...a large portion...". I don't think 6 million out of 9.5 million is most of the population. - Efghij 19:04, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

What math are you working under? 6/9.5 = 63.16%. "Most" means "more than not". Clearly anything over 51% fits the bill. --mav 19:11, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No it doesn't. Most means "the vast majority of" or "nearly all of". 63% is not "nearly all". - Efghij 19:19, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If the term most of is troublesome, how about over half of? --Uncle Ed 19:41, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

most
    adj 1: (superlative of `many' used with count nouns; often preceded
           by `the') quantifier meaning the greatest in number;
           "who has the most apples?"; "most people like eggs";
           "most fishes have fins" [syn: most(a)] [ant: fewest(a)]

Where did you learn your grammar? I don't see anything in the above definition that indicates "vast majority." Tell me this; who has the greatest number of apples? Johnny has 6 and Sue has 4? The issue is moot anyway because I worked around having the word "most" in there by stating actual numbers. --mav

Maybe so, but I think the sentince as it was written gave the wrong impression. Your version is much better. - Efghij 20:38, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Not everyone is as smart as you are, Mav ^_^ and the terms most of or most convey to many minds an impression of a much greater majority than 51%. I would say that "most people" think this way <wink>... --Uncle Ed 14:37, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Considering the sensitive nature of the term "holocaust", as described in the paragraph explaining "Shoah"--I would be in favor of renaming this article "The Destruction" or "The Shoah" though I dont imagine that this will be a popular suggestion. -戴&#30505sv 19:56, Aug 21, 2003 (UTC)

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I was surprised when I read about the "number of people killed by the Nazi regime: 5.6 - 6.1 million Jews ; 3.5 - 6 million Slavic civilians "

I never realised that the number of Slavic people that were killed approached the number of Jews killed. (I find the 2.5-4 million POWs that were killed less surprising, because this happened in the context of war rather than genocide.)I wonder if it is appropriate that only a single sentence in the article is about Slavic people. What proportion of Slavs were killed in concentration camps? I remember my history teacher saying that, if the Nazi state had remained in place, they would have proceeded to systematic (genocidal) extermination of Slavic populations. Maybe it is difficult to make this distinction, but: is the killing of Slavic people to be understood in the context of the war or was its nature fundamentally genocidal?

Could anyone provide more information about this ? - pir 0:15, 11. Sep 2003

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Another question which I feel ought to be addressed in this article (by anyone who knows more than me) concerns the reaction of other countries to the holocaust. The Allies knew that the holocaust was happening, but they did very little to prevent it. Why was this?

- pir 23:38, 14. Sep 2003

There has been at least one book published (I don't recall its author or title) arguing the case that the Western Allies knew all about the Holocaust and could / should have done something / more to "stop" it. From what I have read, the first part of this proposition is incorrect. Of course everyone knew that Hitler was persecuting Jews, but the existence of the death camps was not known until (I think) 1943, when a few survivors' stories were smuggled out. Even then the systematic nature of the Holocaust was not realised until the end of the war. And what were the Allies supposed to do to stop it? Ask Hitler to desist? Threaten him with prosecution? The only thing the Allies could do was to defeat Hitler's armies and destroy his regime, which they did, at the cost of many millions dead. I might do some research on this and submit an article if that seems useful. Dr Adam Carr

I find it impossible to imagine that a state can murder several million people without its enemies getting to know about it. The Allies' intelligence services must have had some information about it. What I can believe is that the Allies were unable to realise the industrial scale of the holocaust, combined maybe, given that anti-Semitism was also common outside of Nazi Germany at that time, with a tendency to look the other way.

What could the Allies have done? It has been suggested they could have bombed the rail tracks that were necessary to transport inmates to death camps.

Yes, it would be great if a historian like you could look into this issue. - pir 8:57, 19. Sep 2003

Of course there is a very large literature on this subject. Most of it is rather polemical, which makes it difficult for the ordinary reader to get a reasonable understanding. A large problem is the wisdom of hindsight --- just because someone was "informed" about something, that does not imply that they "knew" it. Just because something was possible in principle, that doesn't imply that it was a reasonable decision at the time. I would recommend reading both books like "Auschwitz and the Allies" by Martin Gilbert, which are very critical of the Allied behavior, and "The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis" by William Rubenstein, which argues in the other direction. --zero 10:18, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I think it was the Rubinstein book I was thinking of. I will see if I can find both books and get up to speed on this issue. Pir is I think a little unrealistic about the Allies' ability to know what was going on inside occupied Europe - the Germans made considerable efforts to keep what they were doing a secret (eg by killing all the witnesses). It is true that Roosevelt was an anti-Semite in a genteel sort of way and was inclined to believe that the Jews were always complaining about something. But it was, after all, asking a lot of the Allied leaders to expect them to believe that a civilised people could set out deliberately to murder millions of civilians in cold blood. There is one more point to make, and that is the baleful effect of the atrocity propaganda of World War I (Germans bayonetting Belgian babies etc), which was found after the war to have been mostly fabricated. This made people very reluctant to believe atrocity stories without hard evidence. Dr Adam Carr 08:15, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. While reports of atrocities managed to filter through to the West, when Jan Karksi of the Polish underground met with Justice Felix Frankfurter of the Supreme Court, a Jew, and gave an eyewitness account of both the Warsaw Ghetto and a death camp, he was told "I don't believe you." This despite almost daily reports of Nazi atrocities in such papers as the New York Times. Danny 11:40, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think it easy to understand how a man like Frankfurter, who was born in Vienna, found it simply impossible to believe that the Germans could deliberately murder 6 million civilians. And this is really the issue. Although it might have been possible by the end of 1943 to put together all the dribbles of news coming out of eastern Europe and get an idea of what was going on, the concept of a planned systematic genocide was too much for most people, even most Jews, to grasp. My own parents have described to me the absolute blank shock they felt in 1945 when they saw the newsreels of Belsen in a cinema. Despite the many stories about Nazi persecution of the Jews that had appeared in the papers, they had had no idea of what had really been happening. Dr Adam Carr 12:47, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see that there is no mention of the communists and social democrats exterminated in the holocaust. And Raol Wallenberg isn't there either. BL 22:45, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't agree that the Holocaust is used by people to exclusively mean the extermination of the Jews, I think that people just know very little about the numbers of Slavs, Roma, Political Dissidents, Homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses that were killed, mainly due to the groups lacking any kind of power base in the post-war period (whereas Jews in other countries held a fair bit of power.) I suggest

"The term is primarily used to refer to the systematic extermination of the approximately 6 million of the 9.5 million Jews living in Europe before the war" and "Jewish Holocaust"

are changed. Although you could argue that that is my own POV.

Slizor

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This article is almost entirely Jewish POV only verses NPOV that Wiki prides itself on being. Just as the false morality of the post WWII period tries to falsely portray JEWS as innocents and the Aryans or White Nazi's as all evil, so too, has been the false "monsters" of Palestinians attacking the innocent Israeli's that had dispossessed them and that had murdered them: men, women, and children.

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Moved revisionist links. Thanks for contributing, but it was in the wrong place. Ronabop 08:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Removed separate number sections. It makes no sense to have fairly different numbers on the same page. Also faster to revert one section. :-) Ronabop 10:07, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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The link Chelmno in the paragraph Concentration and Extermination Camps is regrettably misleading as the article is on the old town Chelmno being located in the Polish district Kujawsko-Pomoskie, whereas the very small village Chelmno on Ner (Chelmno nad Nerem), the site of the extermination camp, is in Wielkopolskie district near Kolo indeed. I am a new wikipedian and don't what to do. Peter Witte 14:54, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Please check my changes in Chelmno concentration camp I did according to your notice. You may add more. Another thing to do is to change links from {[Chelmno]} to {[[Chelmno]|Chelmno]} where necessary. They may be easily found by the link "What links here". I will do it. Mikkalai 18:39, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."-George Santayana

For example, does one historical genocide ever justify another?

===Palestinian Holocaust and Genocide by Israel---1948-Present

Palestinians are dying, unjustly, that is all that need to be said to act on this issue and change the situation. They live in poverty, unable to govern themselves and build themselves up as a nation due to the extremely strong restrictions that bind them. The anger of such groups as Hamas is understandable, but their use of terrorism hides the integrity of their cause. It is also understandable that Israel takes certain measures to protect their people from terrorism, but they are now destroying a race – they are committing genocide. It is only when these humanitarian injustices of Palestinians are solved and this unrecognized Holocaust is put to an end that the true path to peace in the Middle East can begin.

This has been an issue for well over 60 years but the international community as a whole has been unable to stop it: hence "Terrorism" and "Suicide Bombers"

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."-George Santayana

For example, does one historical genocide ever justify another?

(cur) (last) . . 14:52, 19 Apr 2004 . . Mirv (rv, reason should be obvious)

It is quite obvious, that Mirv and his ilk don't wish to learn from history and are censoring the TRUTH, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Holocaust&oldid=3253739 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Holocaust&action=history which will eventually come out, and this selfish pov behaviour will only result in another such tragedy, yet again, in the future.-PV PS-So be it.

This page has a specific topic: the mid-20th-century Nazi genocide. The text you keep trying to insert is not about the mid-20th-century Nazi genocide, therefore it does not belong here. Please stop adding it. The section on the aftereffects links to the places where these ramifications are discussed in full. —No-One Jones 16:27, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No it isn't. It is about "Holocausts", and "Genocide" both the "Jewish" as being victims then and "Jewish" as being aggressors, today, ie. Zionist Israel.

Today, the term is also used to describe other attempts at genocide, both before and after World War II. More generally, holocaust is used for any overwhelmingly massive and deliberate loss of life, such as that which would result from a nuclear war - sometimes called a "nuclear holocaust".

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."-George Santayana

For example, does one historical genocide ever justify another?

===Palestinian Holocaust and Genocide by Israel---1948-Present

Palestinians are dying, unjustly, that is all that need to be said to act on this issue and change the situation. They live in poverty, unable to govern themselves and build themselves up as a nation due to the extremely strong restrictions that bind them. The anger of such groups as Hamas is understandable, but their use of terrorism hides the integrity of their cause. It is also understandable that Israel takes certain measures to protect their people from terrorism, but they are now destroying a race – they are committing genocide. It is only when these humanitarian injustices of Palestinians are solved and this unrecognized Holocaust is put to an end that the true path to peace in the Middle East can begin. This has been an issue for well over 60 years but the international community as a whole has been unable to stop it: hence "Terrorism" and "Suicide Bombers"

The section is both quite integral to today's genocide and Holocaust of the Palestinian People, today, and resulted in the creation of the Zionist Isreali State and is a critical lesson of history that obviously still needs to be learned by everyone. Therefore, that section is crucial to the article and it also keeps the "events" in proper historical and political and ethnic and religious context.-PV

The section you quote is a brief note on modern usage of the term holocaust; the article itself is about one specific holocaust, i.e. The Holocaust. From the intro: Capitalized, the term Holocaust refers to the Nazis' systematic extermination of various groups they deemed undesirable during World War II. . . —No-One Jones 19:31, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"The" is very Jewish POV, and NOT WIKI NPOV. The usual Jewish pov bigots are reverting the section. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Holocaust&action=history The section is relevant and refers to the modern usage of the term, and how it applies to existing or potential "holocausts" including the present one against the Palestinian People.-PV PS-Obviously, these pov bigots have not learned the lesson of history and so will have to repeat it, again, and again, and again....until . . . flatline!

(I'll ignore the nonsense about "Jewish POV" for the time being.) If you just want to note that the term has been applied to Israeli policy in the occupied territories, then what you say is "[So-and-so] calls Israeli policy in the occupied territories a 'holocaust'."—but don't cut and paste that lengthy paragraph into the introduction. —No-One Jones 19:55, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"(I'll ignore the nonsense about "Jewish POV" for the time being.)"

Only because it is clear that "The" is obviously not "objective". 60 million or more innocent Non-Jews died in WWII, and yet, only 10% of that total seems to matter to you because they were "Jews"?

"If you just want to note that the term has been applied to Israeli policy in the occupied territories, then what you say is "[So-and-so] calls Israeli policy in the occupied territories a 'holocaust'."—but don't cut and paste that lengthy paragraph into the introduction. —No-One Jones 19:55, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)"

It is clear that the author of that article calls Israeli policies in the occupied territories "Genocide" and a "Holocaust", unless of course, in your pov subjectivity, that would violate your "The Holocaust" industry trademark?

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein

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Editorial Reviews The Nation When it comes to analyzing how 'The Holocaust' has been employed to advance political interests, Finkelstein is at his best.

The Economist His basic argument that memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due.

New York Press [S]cathing in his denunciation of the institutions and individuals who have cropped up around the issue of reparations. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

New Statesman A lucid, provocative and passionate book. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

LA Weekly Finkelstein's downright pugilistic book delivers a wallop. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

The Guardian The most controversial book of the year. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Jewish Quarterly Breathtaking in [its] angry accuracy and irony. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author Norman Finkelstein teaches at the City University of New York and contributes to the London Review of Books. He is the author of Image and Reality of the Israel Palestine Conflict and (with Ruth Bettina Birn) A Nation on Trial, named a notable book for 1998 by the New York Times Book Review.

Book Description In an iconoclastic and controversial new study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel's evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America's Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism's victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed.

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Relatedly, the term "Black Holocaust" has come into use to refer to African American slavery. Perhaps what we need is a disambig on Holocaust. Or possibly a section referring to other Holocausts. At the very least, the article does need some other holocausts. But the current Palestinian section at the beginning is a mess, and ought go away. Snowspinner 23:40, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Snowjob spinner" is more like it. Do not revert relevant article sections.

I've yet to revert a relevent one. Snowspinner 00:11, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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I guess it is only a "relevant" one to you "Snowjob" when "JEWS" are dying at the hands of "Non-Jews" and not ever the other way around? YOU are the actual one that is being a pov "vandal" and pov "troll" by deleting relevant sections of the article. Your "lying hypocrisy" and "Malignant Narcissism" is so typical for your ilk.

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Wow, who would have guessed that every Wikipedia user who's ever argued with Paul has "malignant narcissism"? It's really surprising how he can diagnose this based on a couple of edits, too. . . :-) No-One Jones 00:28, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Not me. But, then again, if the shoe fits? A "couple of edits"? Hardly. More like scores of edits and all by the same lying and hypocritical and pov and psychological projectionist "ilk" as "Mirv", ad nauseum. Go figure?

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OK, short form of where I am on this.

1) Person editing in mentions of Palestinians is an anti-Semitic troll.

2) I am not opposed to discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I am largely sympathetic to the Palestinians. However, this is not the appropriate article for that issue.

3) Even if it were the appropriate article, the information being added was non-encyclopedic and not suitable for the position in the article in which it was being placed. Considering the aforementioned anti-Semitic troll nature of the author, I did not feel particularly inclined to waste my time revising it for them.

Snowspinner 00:37, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)