MAUS BY ART SPIEGELMAN

Maus is the tragic yet inspirational tale of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish man who miraculously managed to survive the horrors of Hitler’s reign, the cruelty of the Nazis and the literal hellhole known Auschwitz, the most brutal and remorseless concentration camp which was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of over a million people. All of this was done through many unimaginable strides of luck, perseverance and quick wits.

Maus masterfully balances two parallel stories. The first story, which is the meat and bones of the tale, is a documentary style retelling of Vladek’s experiences during World War II, where the jews are portrayed as mice and the Nazis are portrayed as cats. It’s a not so subtle metaphor for cats playing with mice. Cats don’t just kill their food, they play with it, torture it, and make it suffer until it stops amusing them. This half of the story is told through interviews between Vladek and his son Artie, Artie as in Art Spiegalman, being the author of the story who brings his recorded interviews and daily squabbles with his aging father to life with creative illustrations.

On top of Jews being portrayed as mice and Nazis as cats, every other ethnicity is portrayed as different breeds of animals as well. This is done to really drive the themes of racism home, dehumanizing different groups of people based on racial stereotypes and boiling them down to one dimensional portrayals of otherwise complex people. This is a common tactic among genocidal war mongers and political extremists. They strip away the basic human qualities of their enemies and opponents to make their followers view them as less than human. The book even opens up by directly citing Hitler’s quote, “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” This reminds me of another famous quote by Hitler, where he says, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Indoctrination is a dangerous weapon. The best way to get people to treat others like garbage is to brainwash them into believing that the people they’re hurting aren’t really human, they’re the cause of all your suffering and they just happen to look the same as you.

The simplified yet deliberate art style choices are reminiscent of those from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, to quote the book. The illustrated flashbacks go into graphic detail of the living conditions of the Jewish ghettos, the living conditions of the concentration camps, the treatment of slaves and prisoners, and the harsh reality of betrayal, starvation, torture, confinement and the absolute despair of death literally lurking around every corner. It’s bleak, terrifying and depressing, but the tale is not completely devoid of hope.

The other half of the story is about Vladek’s life after the war, getting remarried after losing his wife in the war, and how he brought another son into the world who would later go on to write this very biography. This second story revolves around Artie’s complicated relationship with his traumatized father. Vladek has many strange quirks that have a habit of getting under his wife and son’s skin. The old man never lets a single penny or scrap of food go to waste. He’s brutally honest and always follows his gut instincts. He’s a bit insensitive and sometimes he even makes jokes about his own horrific past experiences during the Holocaust and how he watched many of his friends and family members die. He’s as stubborn as a mule and he can be very frustrating and disagreeable at times, but it’s undeniable that his stubborn and unrelenting attitude most likely played a role in his survival. He was always the type to adjust to his surroundings, plying his trade and getting his hands dirty if it meant being able to survive another day. The interweaving plots of Vladek’s experiences during World War II and his relationship with his son as an old man are equal parts tragic, comical and touching.

Each chapter begins with the author interviewing his father about different aspects of his past experiences under Hitler’s reign. It balances slice of life with historical tragedies. The use of art and dramatic storytelling make the impact of the events feel much more personal and gruesome than the average documentary or history book would allow. The touching relationship between Vladek and his son is an important reminder that these things happened to normal, innocent people that didn’t do anything wrong and just wanted to live peaceful lives like everyone else. It shows how the Holocaust tore millions of loving families apart, traumatized the few survivors and their children who came after the war, how the Nazi's treated everyone they viewed to be beneath them and so on. It’s more effective and impactful than most required reading on the subject taught in educational settings because of that extra layer of humanization through the perspective of Artie and Vladek’s relatable interactions.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the love story between Vladek and his first true love Anja, who endured the horrors of the concentration camps in a remote location. Vladek and Anja kept each other strong by writing letters to each other in secret, risking their lives and sneaking behind the backs of the monsters running the camps just to remind each other that nothing would be able to separate them, not even the most catastrophic war in history. The hope of one day being able to see each other once more was the only thing that kept them going against all odds. It’s made clear very early on that the love story between the two unfortunately wasn’t able to have a happy ending, and what happened to Anja left Vladek and his son with severe emotional damage. The pain that Anja left with both father and son tore them apart and brought them together through mutual suffering.

Maus shows how heartless and evil humans are capable of being, but it also shows how brave, caring and resourceful we can be as well. We’re survivors by nature, and we’ll struggle against all odds if we think it will lead us back to peace and happiness. After all, peace, happiness and freedom, are all things that we should never take for granted. We never know when we might be placed in a situation where we’re in danger of having them all taken away from us.