Sung Min Cho

Staci Shultz

Eng 205

Dec 2019

Maus

We are living in a society where a lot of bad things happened and are still is h

appening. People are murdering and harming each other because of money, value, re

ligion and other things. There were many wars that happened and are still wars happ

ening in our world. Sadly, war is possible in the future as well. There is a book called ‘

Maus’, which talks about the Holocaust, which was one of the biggest disasters it hap

pened in history. We know about Auschwitz because there were survivors. Auschwitz

was a labor camp as well as a death factory. These survivors were largely West Europ

ean Jews because Auschwitz is where West European Jews were usually sent (Snyder).

People write and read about it in history books and students learn it from school, so

we can learn from our past mistakes and do not repeat them in the present nor the f

uture and understand the battle scars from the survivors to know that present is mad

e out of the past. ‘Maus’ serves this same purpose.

 The Holocaust was one of the largest massacres happened in our history. It wa

s a genocide committed by the Nazis in World War II to annihilate Jews. The number

of dead Jews was around 6 million, and the total number of deaths from this unprece

dented massacre was around 10 million. Auschwitz is the symbol of the Holocaust ex

cludes those who were at the center of the historical event. The largest group of Holo

caust victims—religiously Orthodox and Yiddish-speaking Jews of Poland, or, in the sl

ightly contemptuous German term, Ostjuden —were culturally alien from West Europ

eans, including West European Jews. To some degree, they continue to be marginaliz

ed from the memory of the Holocaust (Snyder).

There is a famous graphic novel about the Holocaust, which is called ‘Maus’ by

Art Spiegelman. ‘Maus’ is the only graphic novel that has received a Pulitzer Prize. Thi

s book tells the story of his father, Vladek’s survival in Auschwitz’s terrible massacre. T

his book is composed of two novel structures. One is the story of his father who esca

ped from death in his life, and the other is about the daily life conflict of values and li

festyle between the son who is the author of this book and the father who has experi

enced extreme situations. By mixing those two plots, the author creates the effect of

concretely presenting the horrors of the Holocaust.

 As we can guess from the title, we can see that Jews are drawn as mice in ‘Maus’. The

meaning of mice in this graphic novel is various. First, Jews were hiding in dark and deep plac

es like mice to avoid the Nazis, which is why mice are appropriate for expressing their pain. S

econdly, we can look at it from a modern point of perspective. It can make us recall Mickey M

ouse, which is a popular American character, and be interpreted as a satire on America’s invis

ible power and violence. We can see that Vladek is saying “I had the whole time to watch out

that this Shvartser doesn’t steal us the groceries from the back seat!” after they drop off a bla

ck person. Vladek’s disparagement of blacks makes mice feel authoritative in modern times. A

nd also we can see through this paradox that the victims of racism can be racist, we can go b

eyond the dichotomy of simply nazi and Vladek Spiegelman as the perpetrators and victims. I

think the creation of the Nazis was not Hitler, but the countless people who lived that era and

who supported them. Auschwitz is a space of disaster created by the support of ordinary peo

ple.

Vladek wanted Artie to become economically successful but Artie still chose to

draw. Artie just can’t stand Vladek enough that he doesn’t want to live with him any

more. You can see on page 259, how mad and disappointing Artie is getting when he

says “That’s outrageous! How can you, of all people, be such a racist! You talk about

blacks the way the Nazis talked about the Jews!” when Vladek is behaving racist towa
rd the black man. However, Artie was feeling guilty after his mother’s sudden suicide,

so he was trying to express his father Vladek’s Auschwitz experience in a graphic nov

el as an attempt to understand his father. Art Spiegelman spent a total of 14 years de

signing this new form of expression and to complete his manuscript.

Vladek was a young man who was selling fabrics in the small town of Czestoch

owa, a small city in Czechoslovakia near the German border when World War II broke

out. By that time, Vladek married the daughter of Polish millionaire Zylberberg and m

oved to his wife’s house in Sosnowiec. ‘Maus’ follows the years that Vladek and his wi

fe Anja have gone from Sosnowiec to Auschwitz. This book shows how despicable an

d cruel humans can be when standing on the threshold of hell. Compared to any Hol

ocaust reports that I have read, ‘Maus’ shows the main achievement of outstanding r

ealism and objectivity. ‘Maus’ offers lots of examples of despair and death on their w

ay from Sosnowiec to Auschwitz. The executioner of the brutality was not only the Na

zis. Even several races in Eastern Europe, such and Poland, and Hungary volunteered

to hunt Jewish people. But also, the Jewish people themselves, accused and murdere

d their own race people to beg for their own lives.

 Art Spiegelman maintains a strictly objective stance while writing and drawing

this history. He is trying not to put any intentional messages in ‘Maus’. As a result, th

e author achieves an extraordinary achievement in incorporating a brilliant reflection

on humanity into the book. When people’s humanity crosses the line, both the perpe

trator and the victim are likely to fall below human.

After all his troubles, Vladek survives from Auschwitz. However, what was the s

ignificance of his life? Vladek strives to justify his survival, but he leaves without getti

ng an answer. For people who are affected physically and psychologically by the past

—be it experiences from the Holocaust or any traumatic event—creating a life of me

aning in the present takes on special importance (Rosenthal). Vladek could survive fr

om the Auschwitz because he was smart and could figure things out very quickly. He

tough English to camp officials to be safer. Even a few good deeds he did were alway

s done by calculating the reward. After the war, Vladek temporarily stays in Sweden a

nd goes to the United States. The “sadness” of the survivors who did everything in th

eir power to survive, faces the time of peace. However, the life of this family has been

a series of nightmares throughout. His son Artie was admitted to a mental hospital a

nd his wife Anja commits suicide. In fact, some studies place the prevalence of PTSD i
n the aging Holocaust survivor community between 46 percent to 55 percent (Rosent

hal), which means it is not unusual that Anja has committed suicide.

The cause of the tragedy came from Vladek himself how he acts. In the United

States, he still wanted to live with the thinking and behavior of Auschwitz-era. He coll

ected wires and screws on the street every day, which helped him survive from Ausch

witz, and he also didn’t trust anyone. He constantly forced their families to survive an

d never stopped nagging. Vladek from Eastern Europe, who has experienced Holocau

st and Artie, who was a free-spirited former hippie in New York stands on an endless

parallel that is irreconcilable in all current issues except while Vladek was talking abo

ut the past. But on the other hand, the current images of Vladek, which Artie cannot

accept are created by Auschwitz’s experiences. Countless experiences that betrayed h

is expectations or his faith made him act like it. This vividly illustrates how the past of

human historical experience reveals the past always stays with presentness in itself an

d its later generations, which means past lives on the present.

Artie, who had a nervous breakdown because of criticism that his father’s inco

mpetence in the ability to live, who chose to do art, so his father can’t interfere and s
o he can avoid competing with his father. And also, who tries to escape from Jewish r

elatives who tenderly emphasize that they are the same people. These images of the

Artie are another present that the past has created, from denial and negativity, althou

gh they are quite contrary to his father’s case. After all, there is a message that neithe

r that the father nor the son, nor the present of mankind can properly clear the past.

Therefore, when we read this book, we should not just only focus on understanding t

he past, but also reflect the past on what our present appearance is.

Artie visits a hospital in the city to meet Jewish friend Pavel, who is from the Czech Re

public. He also survived Auschwitz and warns about the tragedies of World War II. On page 2

05, you can see that Pavel says “ Sigh. I’m not talking about your book now but look at how

many books have already been written about the holocaust. What’s the point? People haven’

t changed… Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.” After all, the present is an extensio

n of the past. And we connect the present to the past under the name of ‘history’. In that sen

se, the life that Vladek experienced becomes history. We never should forget about our histo

ry because our present is made from our past.

 Work Cited

Rosenthal, Michele. “ Aging Holocaust Survivors Suffer From PTSD.” Anxiety.org, A

ccessed 7 Dec. 2019. From https://www.anxiety.org/holocaust-survivors-trauma-

ptsd-yom-hashoah

Snyder, Timothy. “Holocaust: The Ignored Reality.” NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS,

12 July 2009. http://www.ucrdc.org/Archive-Textual_and_Photo_Records-Jewish_

Relations-Other_Publications_files/New%20York%20Review%20of%20Books%20

16%20July%202009.pdf