The Survivor's Tale Continues

What I read: I have started reading the next book of Maus called Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began.  In the beginning of the book, Art is struggling to draw his wife Francoise.  He can't decide if she should be a mouse too, because she converted to be Jewish in order to marry Art, but she is originally from France.  Mala leaves Vladek which causes a crisis in Vladek's life.  He expects Art and Francoise to help take care of him for the rest of the summer.  Also in the first few chapters of this book, Art visits his psychiatrist, who is also a survivor of the Holocaust.  In these scenes, Art and everyone else are wearing animal masks.

Vladek finally tells Art about his first day at Auschwitz.  Vladek explains how he thought that he was going to immediately die in the gas chambers.  In reality, he took a shower in freezing cold water.  Soon after, Vladek gets an identification number tattooed on his arm.  This is the same number that we saw on his arm in the first book.  Vladek is number 175113.  Vladek also tells Art about an experience he had when he was about to give up all hope.  He says that a Polish priest told him that his number means good luck. The priest tells him, "Your number starts with 17.  In Hebrew that's 'K'minyan Tov.' Seventeen is a very good omen... It ends with 13, the age a Jewish boy becomes a man... and look!  Added together it totals 18.  That's 'chai,' the Hebrew number of life."

Vladek tells Art all about living in the bunkers at Auschwitz.  The Kapo would make them get out of their bunkers to do a lot of exercise in the middle of the night.  Whoever didn't move quickly would be beat with a club.  They were also starving and very weak. The one thing that helps Vladek is his knowledge of languages. One day the Kapo asks is anyone speaks Polish and English. Although neither was Vladek's first language, he spoke both.  This allowed him to teach the Kapo English and get a more favorable position with the Kapo.  He also sometimes had access to extra food and clothes. 

Approximately how happy Vladek felt when he got extra food

In the last chapter that I read Valdek and the other prisoners of Auschwitz are forced to leave the camp.  This is because the Germans knew that the Russians were coming and they had to flee. They burned all their tanks, guns, and everything.  Vladek got pushed into a train meant for cattle with a ton of other people. Most of them died on the train but Vladek survived by eating melted snow.  He ended up in another camp that had even worse conditions than Auschwitz.  There Vladek got typhus (the disease that killed Anne Frank) and almost died.  But once again, he was lucky to survive.

What I thought about: At the beginning of the second chapter, Art shows himself drawing his book on top of a pile of dead bodies.  It's a really creepy image. In this image it shows how Art feels that he's benefiting off the deaths of other people.  This is because his first book of Maus had already come out and sold millions of copies.  He became rich and famous because of his comic about the Holocaust.

In the same chapter there are a few pictures of people being gased and burned.  These images are really graphic and very scary to look at.  Although they are shown as mice, it's really clear that Art is showing actual people's deaths.  When I look at their mouths tuned up, they look really different from all the other pictures of mice in the book.  It seems like they are shown this way because this is the mice at a vulnerable point in their lives.

Another thing I thought about was how in parts of these chapters, Art hows himself and others wearing animal masks.  This is different from the Holocaust scenes where people are jsut shown as animals.  I thought a lot about what this maybe means.  It seems like Art is wearing a mouse mask because he knows he's Jewish but he doesn't feel Jewish enough because he didn't have to go through the same experiences his parents did.  So maybe he feels like he doesn't really deserve the label of "Jewish" like his parents earned it. 

Art with his mask on

What I conclude: As I read I keep on thinking about the horrors of the Holocaust.  I keep asking myself if this book would be stronger if the pictures were of people instead of animals.  I think it would actually be weaker.  There's something about showing everyone as an animal that makes it more bearable, but then easier to see the horrors instead of just feeling like we've seen this all before.  Sometimes people get so used to seeing horrrible pictures, like pictures of the Holocaust, and they stop reacting to them.  With the mice and other animals in this book, it still looks like something new that we have never seen before, so it's really strong.

Obviously Vladek will survive at the end of the book.  So will Anja. We know this because they are Art's parents and Art was born after the Holocaust.  However, it's hard to image how they will survive the incredibly difficult situations they have to deal with. It's really hard to think about how Anja will end up killing herself 23 years after the Holocaust ends.

A photo of Art and his mother Anja