RH: "Today he is rather unpopular and his book will certainly not become a best seller, but what it says is basically true even though incomplete. It is more a journalistic account than an in depth study on the topic, which would need to be much longer.

To say that the Holocaust has been used in order to secure Palestine for the Jews is nothing new and we know how important it was in the creation of Israel. Nevertheless it will be a bitter yet necessary reminder to the community. He is also right when he argues that nobody talked about this topic in the USA: in 1968 a well known local encyclopedia asked me to write an article on the Holocaust and they only wanted me to talk about Dachau and Buchenwald because they were not interested in Auschwitz; these topics were censored. I agree with him that people overestimate the number of survivors and that the concept itself is ill-defined - it includes not only the victims of the camps - and it is true that there an exaggerated number of compensation requests are made.

There is something radically wrong in this exploitation because it is an issue that should not be used to make money and I must confess that I found the whole affair with the Swiss banks disturbing. The Jewish-American community is very prosperous and there is no reason for them to ask the Swiss for money. That seems obscene to me."

Q: Professor Hilberg, you are one of the most prominent historians on the Holocaust. Your book, "The Destruction of the European Jews," is unanimously considered a masterpiece. So it would be very important for our listeners to have your comment on Professor Finkelsteinıs book, since it is pretty controversial.

Raul Hilberg: Well, to be honest I wish it were longer. It's a very small book. It may not be apparent but one needs a background to understand what it says. Consequently I think it is very useful but not very easy reading for those who are not familiar with what he is writing about.

Q: Professor Hilberg, generally speaking would you agree with Professor Finkelstein when he denounces the American Jewish organizations and some class-action suit lawyers for "extorting" money from Europe in order to let's say "make a killing"?

Raul Hilberg: I would in substance agree with what he says because I have said much the same things myself and the methods of the World Jewish Congress and some other organizations or people allied with it in his campaign I feel are detestable. I don't subscribe to them. In sum and substance I agree with what Finkelstein says.

Q: Don't you believe that this book could be dangerous, that it could be used by some anti-Semitic extremists, by some neo-Nazi groups for anti-Semitic purposes?

Raul Hilberg: Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, Iım afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing. The fact is that we have now crossed a line, we have seen an action that I personally cannot defend in terms of the tactics and also of the sums of money involved in the claims against not only the Swiss Banks but now extensively in other matters as well.

The American professor of political science, Raul Hilberg, aged 74, is the leading authority in Holocaust studies. He is the author of the three-volume study, The Destruction of the European Jews . Hilberg had to flee Austria as a child with his parents. Today, he lives in Vermont.

Q: Norman Finkelstein accuses US Jewish institutions - in particular, the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) - of extorting moneys in the name of "needy Holocaust survivors." Is this criticism shared by others?

Raul Hilberg: Finkelstein criticizes the Jewish organizations as an outsider. However, there are also conservative Jews who oppose the reparation payments, and there is also criticism that money is not distributed to survivors, for example, in Commentary , the periodical of the American Jewish Committee. In the September 2000 issue, Gabriel Schoenfeld called the present situation concerning reparations a "growing scandal".

Q: But Finkelstein himself is a non-person in the USA.

Raul Hilberg: Yes, because it is held against him that he compares the fate of the Jews with the Palestinians, who were expelled by the Israelis. American Jews can*t stand that. In addition, he wrote the book, A Nation on Trial (together with Ruth Bettina Birn ), in which Daniel Goldhagen*s book, Hitler*s Willing Executions , is criticized. Goldhagen is very popular in the US, even though his scholarly standard is at the level of 1946. But Goldhagen gave vent to a repressed anger of American Jews, which is aimed at present against all sorts of states and organizations in Europe.

Q: But the situation of American Jews today can*t be compared to the past situation of Jews in Europe.

Raul Hilberg: This is correct. The American Jewish community is the wealthiest and most successful in the world. Already ten years ago there were 18 Jewish billionaires, now there are many more. One of them is Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and one of the main shareholders of Seagrams. These people could put an end to poverty among Holocaust survivors within one week.

Q: What is the importance of the Holocaust in the US today?

Raul Hilberg: Many intellectuals in the US use the Holocaust to get positions at universities or museums. The German Studies Association - an association of American scholars specializing in German culture - has been around for decades. But students were not interested in post-war Germany. Only when the Holocaust was discovered as a topic - this happened 15, 20 years ago - did the association begin to blossom. Today there are hundreds of courses on the Holocaust in the US. And when scholars want to get a teaching position or publish a book, it works best if the topic is the Holocaust. The same is true for newspapers. If I am listening to "Deutsche Welle" [a German radio program], I experience a totally different Germany than when I am reading the New York Times .

Q: The campaign against the Swiss banks was also aimed at shoveling money into US coffers, Finkelstein says.

Raul Hilberg: The WJC*s move against the Swiss banks was essentially a clash between American and European culture. In Europe, class-action lawsuits of the type used against the Swiss are unknown. In the US they are common, for instance, against the tobacco industry. The WJC and the lawyers told the Swiss banks: You won*t be able to do business in the US if you don*t pay $20 billion. In the US one knows that this is only an initial threat, but the Swiss were shocked.

Q: But there were dormant accounts which belonged to Holocaust victims.

Raul Hilberg: But not worth $20 billion. In the 1930s, Jews were poor. My family belonged to the middle class, but we did not have a bank account in Austria, let alone in Switzerland. In most of the dormant accounts only a few thousands francs were left. The really rich Jews could escape abroad or their heirs have long since claimed the moneys.

Q: Weren*t these the findings of the Volcker committee, which was supposed to clarify matters?

Raul Hilberg: The current value of the moneys in the dormant Jewish accounts is far less than the $1.25 billion paid by the Swiss. And the investigation itself cost at least 250 millions - lawyers and accountants made a lot of money. But after the Volcker report was published, it would have been embarrassing for the Swiss to say: We paid too much. At that time, I told three newspapers - Weltwoche (Switzerland), Forum (Austria), and Haaretz (Israel) - that this was blackmail. The coalition of claimants did not try to silence me. These people were presumably afraid to lose such a fight.

Q: But Finkelstein*s main allegation is that the money - half of which the Swiss bankers have already paid out - doesn*t go to the account owners.

Raul Hilberg: It takes a long time until a judge can come to a decision about the distribution of moneys. One part of the moneys should go to account holders or their heirs; one part to forced laborers employed by companies which had accounts in Switzerland or companies which had invested in Switzerland; and one part to refugees who were refused entry at the border. It is difficult to clarify the details.

Q: And what remains for the organizations?

Raul Hilberg: According to the agreement with the banks nothing should go to Jewish organizations and their own projects, but they are already queuing up to get money for educational purposes and memorials.

Q: Why weren*t similar measures taken against American banks, where moneys from Holocaust victims were also deposited?

Raul Hilberg: This is just starting. There are also suits against Israeli banks. But presumably the net result will be that there are as small sums to be found as in the Swiss accounts.

Q: Why are these demands, as well as the demands to compensate forced labors, being made at such a late date?

Raul Hilberg: During the Cold War the US had to show consideration for its allies. For this reason, no questions concerning Turkish collaboration with the Nazis are raised to this day - because Turkey is an important ally of the US and Israel. But in Europe Jewish organizations can nowadays collect money without jeopardizing the security of the US. I personally would like to know why the WJC has hardly put any pressure on Austria, even as leading Nazis and SS leaders were Austrians, Hitler included.

Q: What do you think is the reason?

Raul Hilberg: Immediately after the war, the US wanted to make the Russians withdraw from Austria, and the Russians wanted to keep Austria neutral, therefore there was a common interest to grant Austria victim status. And later Austria could cry poor - though its per capita income is as high as Germany*s. And, most importantly, the Austrian PR machinery works better. Austria has the opera ball, the imperial castle, Mozartkugeln [a chocolate]. Americans like that. And Austrians invest and export relatively little to the US, therefore they are less vulnerable to blackmail. In the meantime, they set up a commission in Austria to clarify what happened to Jewish property. Victor Klima, the former chancellor, has asked me to join. My father fought for Austria in the First World War and in 1939 he was kicked out of Austria. After the war they offered him ten dollars per month as compensation. For this reason I told Klima, no thank you, this makes me sick.

Q: Another issue is the number of Holocaust survivors because this is used as a basis for allocating compensation.

Raul Hilberg: First of all, it is difficult to define who counts as a Holocaust survivor. Somebody who was in Auschwitz or hiding in the woods counts. But somebody who was living undetected in a Paris apartment or was married to a non-Jew? Or somebody who could emigrate to the US? I would not think so.

Q: During the last round of negotiations, the Jewish slave-laborers were the main issue. The JCC spoke of 400,000 Jewish slave-laborers surviving in concentration camps and 300,000 in camps in Eastern Europe. Reference was made to your book.

Raul Hilberg: I never presented such figures. In 1945 many Jews were transferred from one camp to another. There were different camps, like Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen, or small sub-camps, for instance Grindlitz, where Oskar Schindler kept his Jews. Therefore, it is irresponsible to present exact figures to the media.

Q: You once said that quality control is missing in Holocaust studies.

Raul Hilberg: That is correct, in particular, in respect to several of the elite universities. This is the only reason why Goldhagen could obtain a PhD in political science at Harvard. There was nobody on the faculty who could have checked his work.

Q: Salomon Korn, a representative of the Jewish community in Germany and a member of the JCC, sees the problem not in Finkelstein's theses but in the German debate of them.

Raul Hilberg: There is one taboo in Germany: Germans must not attack Jews. That is the reason why such coverage is given to a Jew attacking another Jew. But only when this taboo is broken will Germany be really emancipated.