Complete Maus

I must say, of all the comics I have read so far for this class Maus has really been the most moving. I was expecting another story of the holocaust but Maus really turned out to be much, much more. The story is about Art going to talk to his dad and getting his story about the holocaust so he can make it into a comic book, the one you are reading which I thought was an interesting concept. It is a modern tale, told through the eyes of the author, which I think makes it easier to relate with. Art struggles to understand what going through the holocaust was like and I think that is something that everyone who didn't go through it feels. He also is very truthful in his writings, Maus has a very real feeling to it, because it is not just his father retelling his story but also how Art and his father don't always get along and how his father and his second wife Mala do not get along. Speigelman don't hold back on his details, he even includes how he struggled with depression while writing the book, which I found to be very courageous of him, it takes a lot of guts to put all this personal information into a comic.

My step-Grandpa Sam was also a holocaust surviver and Vladek really reminded me of him. He wouldn't throw away anything, My step mom had to spend a week at his apartment cleaning it out after he moved into an assisted living home closer to us. He also remarried after my step mom's mother died, and his new wife Gloria seemed very much like Mala, but I think they got along better than Mala and Vladek. Sam would only give Gloria an allowance that was very small and was very tight with his money. In many ways it seemed that Vladek was a very stereotypical holocaust survivor. Many of his habits made no sense to me but his life was so different from mine, so much harder that I don't think I'll ever be able to understand. I like to think that survivors don't want to to completely understand what they went through, it was just to horrible.

In Maus Vladek recounts his story, that includes more than just the holocaust, but also his life before the war broke out. It starts out before he even meets Art's mother Anja, when he is in Czechoslovakia buying and selling textiles. Later his cousin introduced him to Anja when he went to visit his family, and they stated talking on the phone and sending letters. They eventually got married and her father was very wealthy so he help Vladek start his own textile factory. They have a boy named Richieu but after this Anja becomes sick and depressed and Vladek takes her to a remote sanitarium and when they come back a few months later much has changed. Thier factory has been robbed and Jews are being persecuted. Vladek then gets drafted, then captured by they Germans and put in a POW camp. he is then released from the camp and sneaks back to his family. They are then relocated to the getto. When this happens they decided to send Richieu to live with a friend but the Germans are taking the Jews around where the lives to she poisons herself and the children. Vladek and the family move from different hiding places trying to evade the Germans but are ratted out by one of the people that they help. Vladek and Anja then spend much of their time moving around and hiding with different people until they are captured and sent to Auschwitz. There Vladek and Anja get separated but write letters to each other and another prisoner carries them. In Auschwitz Vladek works as a tinsmith and in a shoe shop but is then sent to do black work, hard manual labor. It is almost the end of the war and all the prisoners that are healthy enough to make a trip to Switzerland are sent to exchange for German POWs. On the trip they are stopped in a train yard for days without food and many people die here. then they are released and are free to go. After this Vladek and other get captured by German partols but the patrols flee each time. Eventually they meet the American soldiers and they help the Jews with food and health care. Vladek then returns to his hometown, Anja is there and they are so happy to finally se each other again. This is where Vladek stops his story, but while this is going on another story is running parallel to it, the one in the present day for Art.

It starts with Art going to his father house to get the story from him about his life and living through the holocaust. It shows the struggle Art goes through with his father and their clashing personalities. Also Vladek is having marriage problems and Mala his second wife leaves him and takes the money from their accounts. Art has to go help his father and Vladek eventually goes to Florida to she Mala and they get back together. Then Vladek has some medical complication and has to go to the hospital in Florida and Art flies down to see him, the 3 of them thne fly back to New York to go to a hospital there and the Doctor says he will be ok. Later after the first volume of Maus comes out Vladek dies and art has a hard time getting over his fathers death but with help from a theripist he finishes the second volume and puts out, what I would consider one of the greatest graphic novels I have ever read.