The complete maus Paperback – October 2, 2003

OVERVIEW:Maus is an excellent read. Art Spiegelman is a cartoonist, and comic book creator, but he wanted to document his dad's experience surviving the holocaust. So, he interviewed his dad in a series of conversations. This book chronicles these, giving the reader a dialogue version of Art's dad's haunting struggle for safety and survival as a Jew in Poland and in Germany during the holocaust. It also provides context to the interview itself, telling of his dad's strained relationships with his family along with the author's own fears, concerns, and struggles in writing this book.CONCERNS:A couple of the main concerns with this book are (1) the author's use of animal metaphors to depict groups of people (eg., Jews are drawn as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs), and (2) the fact that the book is a comic.(1) In addressing the first, this is a concern that resonated with me when deciding whether or not to buy this book. The author uses mice as a metaphor for Jews, cats for Germans, pigs for Poles, mix-breed dogs for Americans, etc. The metaphor - even to the author's own admission (p203) - occasionally gets tangled when actual animals come into play. For example, his shrink's house is "overrun with stray dogs and cats" and he keeps a picture of one of his cats in his office (p203). Similarly, Anja (Art's mom) is frightened of rats which Vladek (Art's dad) claims are just mice in order to calm her fears (p149).But the main concern with these metaphors is that the author depicts Poles as pigs. Critics reasonably say that this is unfair considering that Poles were also greatly persecuted by Nazis and explain that many Poles were kind to Jews and hid and fed them during the war. Indeed, why did he choose any of the animals he chose? This is a fair concern, and I have to possible explanations for it. The reasoning behind mice and cats is a bit more clear. The Nazi Regime and propaganda referred to Jews as mice. The author includes a quote at the beginning of Maus II:"Mickey Mouse is the most miserablee ideal ever revealed... Healthy emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable youth that the dirty and filth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal... Away with Jewish brutalization of the people! Down with Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross!" - newspaper article, Pomerania, Germany, mid-1930s (p164).Thus, since the Nazis portrayed the Jews as mice as well as their prey, it was fitting to depict the Germans as cats. But why Poles as pigs? Some say this is how the Nazi regime portrayed them though I can't find much evidence of this. Another reason is that this is possibly how Vladek (the author's dad) saw them. Vladek's story recounts several times Poles risked their lives to hide or otherwise help Jews (eg., 140-150, 192,195). But he also acutely remembers how many other Poles aligned closely with the Nazis: Some Poles taught their children that Jews would bag and eat them (p151); Vladek and Anja were betrayed by Poles (p157), the kapos who "ran" the concentration camps were Poles, and even after the war, Vladek and Anja heard stories from other Jews of Poles who were still driving away, beating, and killing Jews (p291-292).Vladek is portrayed throughout this book as highly difficult to get along with, selfish, and racist. This leads the author to seriously question if he should even finish writing the book as he fears it might cast all Jews in a negative light simply because of his dad's behavior.(2) Spiegelman himself admits that comics is not the ideal method of relaying holocaust stories. In the book, he tells his wife, "There's so much I'll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics... so much has to be left out or distorted." To which she replies, "Just keep it honest, honey." (p176). Ultimately, though, I do not think this is as big an issue as many see it to be. I understand where critics are coming from, but this is just one book and one person's retelling of their survival of the holocaust. It is not nor is it meant to be exhaustive or a main source on the holocaust. Spiegelman is simply using his talents (comic book creation and writing) to tell his dad's survival of one of the darkest times in history.Furthermore, many people are looking for an underlying message in Maus - one that does not exist. Spiegelman mentions this toward the end of Maus II when he is being hounded by interviewers asking unhelpful questions. One interviewer says, "Tell our viewers what message you want them to get from your book." To which he responds, "A message? I dunno... I - I never thought of reducing it to a message. I mean, I wasn't trying to convince anybody of anything." (p202)FINAL THOUGHTS:If this is the only book on the holocaust you are reading or if you intend it as your sole education on the holocaust or WWII, then don't read it. If, however, you are wanting to hear a variety of holocaust survivor stories, then I definitely recommend this being one of them. It is honest - even when painful to be so - and sheds light on a few of the ways in which survivors were traumatized. Even the fact that it is a comic provides a uniqueness to it that I believe to be helpful in hearing different people's experiences through the holocaust.Maus also shows that not all of the victims were/are nice people. Thus, the quality of being human and that of being valuable cannot be defined by one's behavior or words - it must be something intrinsic to us. No, this is not the message of Maus; there is no message (p202). But nonetheless, it is something we can learn from reading this book along with many other survivor stories.

This grim and terrible blight on history is very much an important story that bears repeating. Eighty years afterward, there are still people pretending that the Holocaust didn't happen. It wasn't just Jews who died. Gypsies, Slavs, and the disabled were also sent to the camps to be exterminated. Art Spielberg's effective artwork helps make his own family story palatable.It was very much a miracle that both of his parents survived, and terribly sad that both of them bore such terrible inner wounds that affected them for the rest of their lives. And it very much affected Art's own upbringing. How terrible to always be compared unfavorably to a dead sibling! You can't even yell at them because they're already dead. Holocaust survivors are human; they can be difficult, even wretched human beings, and Art takes great pains (pun not intended) to point this out. When they were swept up in events, each choice, each character flaw often had profound impacts on not only their own lives, but on those around them. It was very much a case of character being tested and all too often found wanting.Like "Diary of Anne Frank," this is suitable for older teens as educational material, and should spark a lot of discussion about personal choices in addition to what is covered by the story's broader historical events.I think Art was wise to depict his French wife as a mouse. Making the Americans mixed-breed mutts? LOL! As Norm Crosby would say, "I resemble that remark!" Highly recommended.

The Complete Maus is a graphic novel that tells two stories, one set in 1930s and 1940s Europe, and the other in roughly present day 1980s America, when and where the book was being written.The first story is one that breaks the fourth wall in that it’s the story of the author, Art Spiegelman, and his father, the elderly Vladek Spiegelman. Art is a cartoonist interviewing his father about what it was like to be a Polish Jew during the buildup to WWII. He tells the story of his (as well as his wife Anja’s) trials and ultimate survival of the war and the Holocaust. As the story progresses, we discover that Vladek has remarried to another survivor named Mala in the years since Anja passed away in 1968. But that relationship is a complicated one (to say the least) as Vladek is a deeply flawed man in his old age. These flaws cause rifts between Art and Vladek as well. This first story zeroes in on these complications between Vladek, Art, and Mala.The second story is a love story between Vladek and Anja as a young couple facing the dangerous and genocidal landscape of WWII Europe. Throughout the late 1930s until the war ended in 1945, the two relied on each other for the strength to survive. Even when things were at their most bleak, while both were imprisoned in Auschwitz, they managed to get messages back-and-forth to each other, and Vladek even managed to get his wife some food here and there. Once the war ended and they both escaped with their lives, Vladek found Anja again back in their hometown and they made a life together, eventually having a son named Art in 1950. The book is full of details about what many Jewish people experienced during the war. Anja came from a wealthy family, and Vladek was a successful business owner himself. But they all started losing their businesses and money as the landscape started to change. Vladek and Anja survived being sent to the ghettos in large part due to Vladek’s determined, clever, resourceful fortitude. They hid in bunkers with dirt and mice. In Auschwitz, Anja nearly died of starvation, and Vladek nearly of typhus. They were both tortured and beaten by Nazis, and Vladek was nearly murdered by Nazis on several occasions. They both lost nearly their entire families to the Nazis, including their first son Richieu, their parents, siblings, cousins and friends.The two stories come together near the end as the timelines merge. That’s when the point is really driven home about how Vladek’s experiences in the war affected his psychology in later years. Although Vladek is a sympathetic character in his youth (smart, clever, resourceful and someone the reader really roots for), he is not depicted that way as an elderly man. This is a big part of the struggle for Art, attempting to reconcile the cheap, stubborn, argumentative (and sometimes racist) elderly man with the man he was in his youth.Vladek wasn’t the only one who suffered as a result of the trauma experienced during the war. Anja had suffered from some sort of affliction that saw her hospitalized before the war, but she committed suicide in 1968. And Art battled the ghost of his dead brother Richieu, whom he had never met. When it seemed that a being sent to a work or death camp was imminent, Anja’s sister thought she could get her kids to safety in the countryside, so Anja and Vladek sent their very young son Richieu with her, hoping he’d have a better chance of surviving. Ultimately when she and the kids were hunted by the Nazis, she killed herself and all the kids to prevent them from suffering a more painful death upon capture. And even though Richieu was dead before Art was ever born, he lived with his dead brother’s ghost ever-present as he grew up in Richieu’s shadow.In the book, people are drawn as animals. For example, Jews are drawn as mice and the Nazis are cats. I don’t know whether it makes the work more or less impressive as a result, but I almost completely forgot that they were mice and cats within a couple of pages. What makes this book great for me is the storytelling, not the metaphor.This is the story of two lovers who survived one of the most terrible times in human history. They relied on each other, and even under the worst of circumstances, they persevered together. And it was also the story of the aftermath, the damage done and the trauma inflicted upon those who did manage to survive and the generations that followed.I’ve never been a big graphic novel fan, but this is a fine piece of work.This book made me think of a poem written by Leonard Cohen poem from his book “Let Us Compare Mythologies” –'Lovers'During the first pogrom theyMet behind the ruins of their homes –Sweet merchants trading: her loveFor a history full of poems.And at the hot ovens theyCunningly managed a briefKiss before the soldier cameTo knock out her golden teeth.And in the furnace itselfAs the flames flamed higher.He tried to kiss her burning breastsAs she burned in the fire.Later he often wondered:Was their barter completed?While men around him plundered.And knew he had been cheated.