Understanding the Holocaust through Art Spiegelman's Maus Essay

     Throughout history the Jewish people have been scapegoats; whenever something was not going right they were the ones to blame. From Biblical times through to the Shakespearean Era, all the way to the Middle East Crisis and the creation of Israel, the Jews have been persecuted and blamed for the problems of the world. The most horrifying account of Jewish persecution is the holocaust, which took place in Europe from 1933 to 1945 when Adolf Hitler tried to eliminate all the people that he thought were inferior to the Germans, namely the Jews, because he wanted a pure Aryan State.

In chapter one of book II Art reveals that he feels extremely guilty about not having to go through the Holocaust like his father did and says "Somehow, I wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! …I guess it's some form of guilt about having had an easier life than they did"(Spiegelman, MausII,16).

I am and SS officer. I was stationed at Auschwitz. More Jews were coming in every day. There were eighty to a cattle cart. There were so many families that had to go separate ways from one another. I had killed mothers and the babies and weakest of the men that couldn’t work. It was horrible, I do say. If I could say no I would never do it again. I loved my country and Hitler at the time, so I was willing to do whatever it took to get noticed. I was then stationed at a woman’s concentration camp. They all had gotten shaved, had no gold teeth, and had had tattoos on their arms. It was their identification code. They were so skinny it was just skin stuck to the bones. They looked like corpses, but alive. I wonder how many died soon after.

Anja’s depression affected her life and the Holocaust, and losing her son made it even worse. She decided she no longer wanted to live and committed suicide. Mental illness is real; people who lived through the Holocaust were majorly affected, and the characters in this story are a representation of survivors as well as mental illness effects. Artie uses the characters’ issues to address mental health issues. The characters become a symbol of their illnesses.

Art and Vladek have not been able to connect as much as they would like because of their contentious relationship. When discussing their relationship to Pavel, Art’s avuncular therapist, Art says, “Mainly I remember arguing with him... and being told I couldn’t do anything as well as he could” (II: 44). When Art was young, he never had a chance to truly consociate with Vladek. Vladek was too affected by the Holocaust to become close with Art, and this engendered Art and Vladek’s distant relationship. Since Art has a distant paternal relationship, it forces him to be more independent when Art could have learned a great deal from Vladek. Since they are not close, they are both losing an important part of their life, and this will have a negative effect on both of them. It also is evident that neither worked towards becoming close, as they still misunderstand each other and argue often. During an argument, Vladek says, “Always you’re so lazy! Every job we should do as to do it the right way.” Then, Art replies, “Lazy?! Damn it, you’re driving me nuts!” (II: 21). They continuously have arguments that eradicate any attempt to create a better relationship. Their irreparable differences seem to drive these arguments. When Vladek and Art approach their differences with arguments, it creates a significant burden on their relationship. This burden has caused them to become distant. Since Art is distant with Vladek, he has and is neglecting a great deal of wisdom which can be crucial for him, especially since Vladek survived an enormous genocide of the Jews. Vladek can teach Art to become resourceful, adaptive, and most of all, grateful. These traits can help Art to become a better person in a time where there is no holocaust for Art or anyone else to

The Holocaust was the murder and persecution of approximately 6 million Jews and many others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January of 1933. The Nazis thought that the “inferior” Jews were a threat to the “racially superior” German racial community. The death camps were operated from 1941 to 1945, and many people lost their lives or were forced to work in concentration camps during these years. The story leading up to the Holocaust, how the terrible event affected people’s lives, and how it came to and end are all topics that make this historic event worth learning about.

     The world that people lived in during the Holocaust is described by the personal experiences of the oppressed throughout the story Jack and Rochelle, written by Jack and Rochelle Sutin, and the memoir by Alexander Donat titled The Holocaust Kingdom. The horrifying mindset of the oppressors, particularly the Nazi`s, is illustrated in both books. The vicious and relentless emotional, physical, and psychological abuse the Nazi`s targeted at their victims is depicted in detail. The unspeakable cruelty received by the Jews dramatically altered their state of mind and how they lived their lives. The emotions of despair, distress, depression, hopelessness, helplessness felt by the Jews

First, forced to leave your home and everything they worked for to move into a

Toward the beginning of book, Artie touches base at his father, Vladek’s home keeping in mind that his goal is to record his dad’s Holocaust recollections for a book he is writing. Artie’s mother died from suicide and as Artie was going through with her funeral. Artie and Vladek enter a dark and depressing phase, Artie lets his feelings out by drawing it out and making a comic. As the reader, it shows how effortlessly it is to find out about the amount Arties endured amid this time of his life. In a way it speaks to his parents hardships during the holocaust as his dad had explained to him through the book. It discovered a lot of opinions and how painful to his father as he reads it, and Mala purposely keeping this comic.

The Holocaust is known to all of us in some manner. Maybe we know someone who survived this

The Holocaust of 1933-1945, was the systematic killing of millions of European Jews by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis) (Webster, 430). This project showed the treacherous treatment towards all Jews of that era. Though many fought against this horrific genocide, the officials had already determined in their minds to exterminate the Jews. Thus, the Holocaust was a malicious movement that broke up many homes, brought immense despair, and congregated great discrimination. The Holocaust was an act of Hell on earth.

(pg. 39, The Perversion of Loss) He feels guilty about having been born after the Holocaust, and that his parents had to live through it, while his life has been easy. This strains Art and pushes him further away from his father, when he asks himself which of his parents he would save from a concentration camp he tends to pick his mother. This guilt is visible when Art is talking to his wife and tells her that he “somehow wishes he could have be in Auschwitz with his parents, so he could really know what they lived through.”

Maus is a graphic novel that features Art Spiegelman as he interviews his father, Vladek, about his experience during the Holocaust. His father, Vladek, is elderly and has a troubled marriage. He is a very frugal person and does not like to spend his money. The book goes into detail about Vladek’s life as he goes from being wealthy to living in poverty. He goes through two marriages and raises his son. The author shows the characters in the book as Jewish mice, the Polish people as pigs, and the Nazis as cats. This is to dehumanize the tragic events of the Holocaust. Vladek’s will to live is strong and this allows him to live through the horrors of concentration camps. He was separated from his wife, nearly starves to death, watches his friends

The holocaust, or Shoah was a systematic, planned program of genocide to exterminate all Jews. This government based program was carried out by Hitler, and its allies in the Nazi army during world war two. Approximately 6 million Jews were killed, and if the murder of the Romani, Soviet civilians and prisoners, the disabled, homosexuals, and others who apposed to Hitler’s religious, political and social views were counted, this number would be more like 11 to 17 million. The holocaust is generally described with two periods, 1933-1939, and 1939-1945, the end of WWII.

The holocaust has effected more lives than anybody could imagine, the tragedy has not only affected those who were there or primarily affected but those of every generation to come after that. This illustrated by Art and Vladek’s inability to get along, Vladek’s personality quirks, Anja’s suicide, Art’s guilt, are all factors that contributed to the rocky family relationship the Spieglemans had, and are all due to the horrors of the holocaust. The horrors of which did not end when the Nazi’s were defeated in WW2, rather continuing to have an impact on further generations, in which all of their stories will never be