Martin Amis's first romance was with a Jewish girl, and it led to a life-long love affair with the Jewish people.
The author described himself as a "philo-semite" and recalled that "even as a child I was very drawn to Jews. My first love was Jewish".
Speaking to an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, he said that people were unable to react neutrally to Jews.
"Most are hostile, because human emotions tend to be hostile, but some are the opposite of that.
"But to be completely neutral doesn't seem to be in us."
Mr Amis, whose latest novel, The Zone of Interest, is set in Auschwitz, noted that antisemitism was the default position for many. Anti-Jewish prejudice was "a sort of ancient, semi-mystical, magical thinking kind of hatred," he said. "It's probably ineradicable. It will never go away."
But he said the Holocaust could not have taken place in Britain. He recalled a conversation on the subject with his father, the author Kingsley Amis.
"He said: 'No, the men wouldn't have it. Would they turn Hounslow into a death camp? No sir'."
