Holocaust (Re: NP: Not to bring up a shitstorm or anything...

[jbor]

Renewed (ongoing?) reference to the issue brings to mind again one of a 
couple of Holocaust "survivor testimonies" I was recently asked to review:

Olga Horak's _Auschwitz to Australia: A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir_
Kangaroo Press (Simon & Schuster): Sydney 2000, which concludes on the
following note ...

    I am proud of having retained my identity and also my religious beliefs
    and traditions. I feel good being a volunteer guide and an active member
    at the Sydney Jewish Museum, but I still feel the hurt inflicted upon me
    and carry scars deep inside me. However, I would like to stress that I
    do not carry hatred within me. Hatred is ugly and brought on the most
    terrible tragedy in the twentieth century. (p. 111)

The memoir is a harrowing but clear-sighted account, and the author recalls
the betrayals by her own family members and other Jewish people as well as
those of public officials and non-Jews, and likewise the often unexpected
kindnesses shown by individuals on both sides of the war divide and in the
KLs and Arbeitslagers where she was incarcerated.

The 'Foreword' to the memoir emphasises what is a very important point imo:

"No two survivors' stories are the same." (xi)

There is no doubt in my mind that survivor testimony of this kind is
invaluable as a primary source for understanding history, but this caveat is
a central one. Even such a first-hand account is but one perspective on what
happened, on why it happened, on the causes & significances & legacies &c.
It is an *interpretation* as much as any secondary historical analysis is
also an interpretation, and awareness of or open-mindedness about this
incontrovertible *fact* (call it "postmodern skepticism" or what you will)
is necessary and something which Pynchon is very well-apprised of in _GR_
imho.

I agree wholeheartedly with MalignD's very sensible assertion that Pynchon's
reluctance to offer definitive or central treatment of the Holocaust in the
text of _GR_ derives, at least in part, from an unwillingness to presume to
know, or to speak, as an authority on something of this magnitude and of
which he has had no personal experience. I think there are other factors
involved as well, not least of these being that _GR_ is a commercial
product. As bad as "Holocaust-deniers", or perhaps worse, are those who use
the Holocaust merely in order to seek profit or some other form of
self-aggrandisement (eg control, superiority, credibility).

best

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> From: <mdougla1 at midsouth.rr.com>
>
> There's an article in the February Esquire about Holocaust deniers.
>