Maus

I have a fair amount to say on the graphic novel "Maus", by Art Spiegelman.  It was a very well done and thought provoking read.  After finishing it I had a very interesting  conversation with my Mother (like art is a Jew from New York).  In this essay I am going to relate my mothers and Art's experiences with growing up with survivors of the holocaust, as well as my own experience when reading this novel.

My mother was raised Jewish in a very orthodox community in the middle of Queens.  She was surrounded by survivors of the holocaust, and grew up with their stories.  Her experiences are in some way very relatable to Art Spiegelman. I am part of the second generation of Jews that are separated from the holocaust. My direct grandparents were not in Europe during the holocaust, but I do have more distant relatives that lived through it as well as perished in the camps.  I was talking to my mom about reading this novel and much to my surprise she read it when it first came out.  This shocked me, because my mom does not read comics. The idea of her voluntarily picking up this one was amazing.  The book really did achieve reaching a new audience, just like Art's father states in the novel about how Art's comic would. Unfortunately, my mother didn't finish the comic, she remembers that the Art did not believe his father.  This idea stuck and she put down the book, I personally don't understand why she thought this.  If anything, he was mad about his father burning up others stories, such as his mother’s diary and the letters to the French prisoner. When I was reading it, there was a lot of thoughts that both my mother and Art shared. Most of these thoughts are about about of survivor’s guilt.  There is a great scene where Art and his wife talk about how he fantasizes about being in the camp with his parents so he can truly understate as well as having guilt about having it too early in life in comparison to the hard ship of his elders. I have had similar discussion with my mother and I have a feeling that a lot of the generations of Jews that came after the War have had similar trains of thought.  The Holocaust has changed the voice and culture of the Jewish population.

Reading "Maus" took me a couple of days to get through. There are a couple of parts  in the Novel that got to me and I needing to pause in order process the situation fully.  The most impactful part of the Novel for me was when he was recalling his experience on the train.  I can't describe my horror and deep sadness when reading about how he tied up his blanket and hung above 200 other men in a 9 by 4-foot box with only a few small windows. The whole description from the starvation, bartering food for snow as well as the body count just really hit me.  I can't mentally grasp the whole horror of this.  I have experienced feeling so cramped to can't move, but not for days or weeks. I have experienced hunger, but not to the extent that Art's father talks about.  I can only imagine living in once own filth as well as being surrounded by the dead and dying.  All of this on its own is horrid, but it’s the fact that the Germans would open up the doors every couple of day and have them kick out the dead.  The majority of the book had hardships like this, but that one really sticks with me.  I also grew up hearing the horrors of the holocaust but they to me at least until I got older felt more like cautionary fairytales.  When I was little I couldn't comprehend the idea of millions of people, just like me and my own family suffering to such an extent. It wasn't really until I started to get bullied at school for being Jewish until I realized that this event was not that far in the past.  That people still are very anti-somatic and genesis still happen today.  I really enjoyed the levels that Art put into this book, not only the story of his father survival but also his own relationship with his father.  Over all it gave me a lot to think about and be thankful for.