"The Evacuation still proceeds..." GR Part 1 Section 1

[jbor at bigpond.com]

>> the fact still remains that the 'the Final
>> Solution of the Jewish Question' enacted by the SS in the Nazi death
>> camps -- at Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau 
>> and
>> Majdanek, along with Jungfernhof (in Latvia) and Maly Trostinets (in
>> Byelorussia) -- is nowhere described or referred to in the novel.

On 28/10/2005 Michael J. Hußmann wrote:

> But then, so what? If a novel dealing with the V-2 wouldn't also
> describe KZ Dora, then that would be significant. I don't see the
> significance of not mentioning Auschwitz (explicitly).

Wow. So you don't see any significance at all in the fact that the Nazi 
campaign of genocide against the Jews isn't described, referred to, or 
mentioned in the novel? Wow.

And It's actually one of the primary plot aspects of Pynchon's Dora 
scenes that the German engineer, Pokler, doesn't discover or realise 
the true nature of the Dora camp or the extent of the suffering there 
until "the first week of April" in 1945, when most of the SS guards had 
fled (432-433). How long had Pokler been working right next door 
without knowing what the conditions were like there?

Like I've been saying, it's part of Pynchon's purpose in the novel to 
show that, even on the German side of things, there wasn't a clear 
understanding of what was really going on in the camps. And Pynchon's 
depiction is consistent with the historical record -- for example, when 
it was clear that the war was about to end, the SS at the main 
Auschwitz camp ordered the destruction of the crematoria and gas 
chambers. In doing so they were trying to conceal the camp's true 
function (and they set out to murder all the Jewish inmates who had 
worked in the crematoria as well, though they did not actually manage 
to do this). Had there been no secrecy about the camp then they 
wouldn't have taken these steps. There had been some reports and some 
reconnaissance photos from about May 1944 on, and the Allies had bombed 
the IG Farben plant only a few miles away from Auschwitz (though the 
Allied leaders who knew about Auschwitz gave excuses about why they 
could not bomb the gas chambers there), but the nature and extent of 
what had gone on in the death camps was not widely known until after 
the war.

> As has already
> been mentioned, the war as such doesn't figure prominently in GR either
> -- only to the extent that the rocket is concerned.

There's quite a big difference between the way Pynchon does depict the 
war in the novel -- it's discussed constantly, everyone knows it's 
going on, its effects are mentioned, there are numerous scenes of 
devastation and displaced peoples, scenes set in a German army unit, 
descriptions of the work of the Dutch Resistance, descriptions of 
aircraft, bombs -- and the fact that the death camps and what was going 
on there is never mentioned, described or referred to.

best