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

[Terrance]

Pynchon's suggestion that Orwell might have been attempting to
"redefin[e] a
world in which the Holocaust did not happen" in _1984_.

Now why would Pynchon suggest that Orwell would want to do that?

This is old hat. It's a very common reading actually. 1984 is a novel, a
fiction, not a political pamphlet and not an historical document. But it
is concerned with politics and history. It is also concerned with what
Father Rapier talks about in his sermon--philosophical/theological
questions about Being/Knowing/Meaning of things like Life and Death. So
our Hero is concerned about his memory and the collective memory of the
people. The Proles have no interest in figuring shit out, what happened,
but they don't lack the ability to do so. When it comes to the Lottery
(that arbitrary reminder that life and death are  arbitrary) even the
ignorant and those that can hardly read right and rithmatiic can
calculate and remember sums with astounding proficiency. 

Where does Winston work? 
What does he do? 

Isn't he in the business of recording "good shit" and the "bad shit"? 

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in....

It's not only stories that can be made to fall into a memory hole and
disappear, people can be vaporized into oblivion. This is Winston's
greatest fear. No death, but Death (Pynchon's capital D Death, Their D
of course). Their Death is annihilation. The holocaust, all the dead,
all the memories, all the stories, can be denied and forgotten.