This is how they deal with such things. They pretend they did not happen. Meanwhile, things that did not happen are drummed into the population ad nauseum (muh 6 million). It's a type of Orwellian doublethink, to actively deny the truth while actively acknowledging the lie. > 'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford men who were executed for treachery and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession -- were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something like this.' > > An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O'Brien's fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of Winston's vision. It was a photograph, and there was no question of its identity. It was the photograph. It was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford at the party function in New York, which he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move so much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it. > >'It exists!' he cried. > >'No,' said O'Brien. > > He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the wall. > >'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.' > > 'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.' > > 'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien. > > Winston's heart sank. That was doublethink.