1984 Foreword "redefining a world in which the Holocaust did not happen"

[jbor]

> Much has been made recently of Orwell's own
> attitude toward Jews, some commentators going so far
> as to call it anti-Semitic. If one looks in his
> writing of the time for overt references to the topic,
> one finds relatively little - Jewish matters did not
> seem to command much of his attention - what published
> evidence there is indicates either a sort of numbness
> before the enormity of what had ahppened in the camps
> or a failure at some level to appreciate its full
> significance. There is some felt reticence, as if,
> with so many other deep issues to worry about, Orwell
> would have preferred that the world not be presented
> the added inconvenience of having to think much about
> the Holocaust. The novel may even have been his way
> of redefining a world in which the Holocaust did not
> happen. (xvi-xvii)

This seems to confirm Pynchon's own representation in _GR_ of those on both
sides of the war divide not wanting to think about the Holocaust, even those
who did know what happened in the death camps.

best