Holocaust

[jbor]

----------
>From: KXX4493553 at aol.com
>

> << many (both Germans and
>  non-Germans) *didn't* know what was happening in the Lagers, >>
> Oh, they   d i d   know, "jbor", you can be absoletely sure of.

Well, from the stuff I've been reading recently it appears that even some of
*the victims* didn't know what was about to happen to them (which, if one
does read the opening sequence of _GR_ as an allusion to the "transports"
and death camps, is *exactly* what would seem to be implied there: "You
didn't really believe you'd be saved ... " etc).

Indeed, some people who were "denounced" as Jews and detained thereafter
didn't even *realise* they had a Jewish grandparent, weren't practicing the
faith etc etc.

But when it comes to questions of who knew what, and whether "knowing =
guilt", I think these *are* issues which are extremely pertinent to _GR_ and
I can't understand why anyone would be trying to imply otherwise or suppress
reasonable discussion thereof here. Doug certainly isn't, and all credit to
him for that.

Ken McVay wrote:

> Even when Allied leaders _knew_ what was
> going on, they shied away from public statements/actions because they
> were afraid of being accused of fighting only for the Jews.

and

> I have had a few discussions with Rudolf Vrba, who lives nearby...
> Vrba was one of the first to carry the message of Auschwitz to the
> West. His reports were not believed, to put it mildly. The world did
> not WANT to know.

This sort of "mainstream historical reality" is borne out in the Horak
memoir where she mentions how some of the Slovakian officials visited
Auschwitz after the first Jewish "transports" from Bratislava arrived there
in 1942 and so, it is implied, *must* have known what was going on. To the
Slovakian regime's credit perhaps, they managed to prevent further
"transports" of Jews from Bratislava to the Lagers for almost three years
after this.

But, in regard to _GR_, who in that novel is depicted as *knowing* --
consciously -- about the Shoah? Blicero? Gottfried? Katje? Leni? Frans
Pokler? Even in Pokler's encounter with the "random woman" at Dora there is
no explicit identification of her as Jewish. She might indeed *have been*
Jewish, but Pokler does not register this, and earlier his reference is to
the "foreign prisoners" who were "being marched to work at four in the
morning" -- this is the "truth" he "could not have been ignorant of".

I'm not sure whether the different types of prisoners had coloured triangles
on their clothes or painted on their backs so they were immediately
identifiable in Dora as they were at Auschwitz or while they were on the
"Death Marches" -- Horak describes this tagging and the "hierarchy" of
prisoners in Auschwitz and the Eastern labour camps she was in in vivid
detail. If so it is something which Pynchon has omitted from his text.

Another question -- and this possibly goes to the heart of the depiction of
Leni's younger days -- is not if or when the German people "knew", but
*what* they knew. Chanting anti-Semitic songs and slogans is not the same as
being one of "Hitler's willing executioners", to quote Goldhagen's perhaps
unwarranted judgement on the matter, imo.

I think -- like Gass's _The Tunnel_ as well -- these are some of the
*questions* which Pynchon raises in _GR_, and I think the reasons for *his*
not being qualified to answer them conclusively in his text are somewhat
self-evident.

best