Martin Niemoller was a prominent Lutheran pastor and originally a Nazi sympathizer who later became disillusioned with Hitler's interference in the church. The link below gives you a little more information about him, including the fact that he spent the last eight years of Nazi rule in Nazi prisons and concentration camps.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

The link below goes to a short write-up on how the poem can be used to discuss apathy in general and "a warning about the ease with which such an event could occur again, if we of the present allow ourselves to become ignorant of the lessons of the past."
https://www.paih.org/first-they-came-the-poem-of-protest

 

At one point, Art said he was originally insulted to have a received a Young Adult Best Book award because he viewed the award as recognition that he had simplified and/or reduced the subject matter to a more immature audience—which, of course, is not what he had intended. Afterwards, he came to accept it more as a testament that he could bring such a heavy message to a much larger audience than would have otherwise read Maus. He said, “I suppose one of the ways that Maus has been able to stay alive is the fact that people are able to just enter in and read without looking under the hood, let’s say. Meta Maus is a way of letting people look under the hood if they want to or find out more about the history and the family that intersect with the medium in this story.” 

Apparently, Maus was received with such immense literary success that when Art wrote anything else afterwards, people  would say, "that's nice, but it's not Maus." His subsequent work never seemed to be allowed to stand on its own, but rather was held to the yardstick of Maus.

The link to that interview is here:

 

 

Finally, on a Maus Wikipedia page, I find this information about the word maus: “The German word Maus is cognate to the English word "mouse",^[117] and also reminiscent of the German verb mauscheln, which means "to speak like a Jew"^[118] and refers to the way Jews from Eastern Europe spoke German^[119]—a word etymologically related not to Maus but, distantly, to Moses.^[

 

Art may have had various reasons for originally writing Maus, but I think the process of writing forced him to deal with other difficult topics (i.e., his newly surfacing troubles). While the Maus story, on the surface, is largely what Vladek went through during the Holocaust, the mere retelling of those experiences forces Art to deal not only with the horrors his father endured, but also his personal “fallout:” his mother’s suicide, how he feels he doesn’t meet his father’s expectations or measure up to him as a man, and how his success from Maus I is bittersweet. Art would likely have eventually dealt with his mother’s suicide on some level, but without writing Maus, Art would likely not have had the conversations he had with his father that resulted in him getting to know his father better, and he absolutely would not have had to deal with the perceived downside of his success from Maus I.

 

https://momreadsteen.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/maus-ii-and-here-my-troubles-began-by-art-spiegelman-1991-pantheon-isbn-0-679-72977-1/#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%20story%2C%20related,never%20to%20be%20seen%20again.

 

·         at the theater telling the lady next to him that he can only hear out of his left ear when he is trying to get Dora’s attention.

·         after the restaurant was closed, describing what the inspector might have to eat so that the inspector would be “convinced” to order the only dish that was possible for Guido to deliver.

·         when explaining the sign, “No Jews or dogs allowed” to  his son.

·         when explaining to Giosue the “surprise” that Guido had in store for him on his birthday—when they were taken by the Germans

·         when Guido is translating the German rules to the new arrivals to the camp

·         the way he tricks his son to decide to stay “in the game” at the camp when Giosue wanted to go home

·         when he pretends to teach the German kids how to say thank you in Italian

 

These acts of thinking on his feet helped Guido out of difficult situations.

 

Vladek was also quick-thinking. He collected and saved every little thing he could get his hands on, knowing that it might be valuable later. He collected items that could prove useful when bartering with guards or escaping dangerous situations with other German enemies, he collected and saved food to help Anja and his friends survive, and he pretended to have skills he did not have. His quick thinking and resourcefulness helped him and those he cared for overcome many difficult situations.

 

Guido’s positive attitude absolutely helped Giosue survive the camps without being too affected by the reality of the situation. On some level, I imagine that maintaining a positive attitude for Giosue helped Guido survive as well. He knew that his family’s well-being was dependent on him and his ability to survive.

 

Vladek’s hope came from his resourcefulness. With every scrap of food or discarded item he was able to secure and save, his hope of surviving his various other hopeless situations was reinforced. He was able to draw on his previous successes in difficult situations to give him hope of surviving the next one—a sort of survival by momentum.

 

I’m not convinced that the world will never forget. We keep repeating our despicable acts of violence towards others who are different from us. Perhaps we do not seem to be learning because the continued violence takes a slightly different “face.” Perhaps we have learned the evils of slavery, although we continue to subjugate others in different ways. We continue to place more value on some lives than others’. While slavery and death camps are not discussed openly in conversation or often covered in news, these acts still exist in industries such as human trafficking and even in present-day migration camps in the United States. Other countries have their own camps:  

·         China’s “political education” camps designed to hold hundreds of thousands of people, supported by a high-tech surveillance system

·         Syria’s prison complex dedicated to the torture and mass execution of civilians

·         Northeast India’s detention center capable of holding 3,000 people who may have lived in the country for decades but are unable to prove they are citizens. 

·         Myanmar’s rural encampments where thousands of people are being forced to live on the basis of their ethnicity.

·         On small islands and in deserts at the edges of wealthy regions—Greece’s Aegean islands, the Negev Desert in Israel, the Pacific Ocean near Australia, the southern Mediterranean coastline—there exists various types of large holding centers for would-be migrants.

Based on these continued examples of discrimination, it seems that we have either forgotten or don’t care about our past, or we fail to see how we are perpetuating these practices of suppressing others.

 

 

Regarding the question of whether one could love both Nazis and Jewish people, I believe that, if one is a Christian, he or she is tasked with loving everyone. We are not tasked with loving their actions, however. Of course, even liking or accepting others is often difficult so loving others can be even more difficult. I heard someone from my church say that the Jewish people got what they deserved, and I was astounded. I wondered how anyone could possibly utter such ridiculous garbage, but in the last few days I have also heard people claim the world is flat. I find it incredible that people can hold so tightly onto some of the beliefs they have. The Germans who were carrying out Hitler’s orders believed—somehow, on some level—that they were doing the right thing. While I, personally, can’t imagine being led to follow such evil, I can see that people can be extremely naïve, weak, ignorant, and impressionable. It is for this reason that cult leaders can gain such a following. They are able to identify and play to these people’s naivete, weaknesses, ignorance, and impressionability to further their own warped causes. Consider Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh. I, personally, don’t know how to love these people because I’m not completely able to extricate their actions from who they are. I am able to recognize that the people who perpetrate such heinous actions—and the people like Ye who seem to support them—perhaps deserve my sympathy because they must be deeply tortured themselves. That being said, while I’m able to recognize God wants me to love them, I am apparently not that good of a Christian because disgust and anger are what I feel towards them mostly—not love.

 

Are Jewish people in danger in America? I believe we are all in danger to some degree. All we need to do is come across someone who sees us as their enemy because of our race (like the somewhat recent violence against Asians, and the ongoing violence against African Americans), our religion, our sexual preference, our political affiliation, our weight. The list goes on. 

 

I think Mala stays and endures Vladek’s hostility towards her for a couple of reasons. Perhaps she truly loves Vladek. While that’s possible, she doesn’t seem to display the loving behavior toward her husband that one would typically expect. I think it’s more likely that Mala views Vladek as a provider of security. Just as Vladek needs Mala to combat loneliness and the dependence that comes with aging, she needs him for the financial stability he offers her—something that becomes increasingly important as she ages perhaps. I think she probably left because the mistreatment became too much to endure. I think she likely returned for a couple of reasons: she probably felt some sense of duty to Vladek as he became more ill, and perhaps she found that the security he provided was more important to her than being treated well. 

 

I cannot add examples of Artie’s traumas beyond what the other students have written: his dreams of horrors that he never had to experience himself, and his feelings of guilt over not only his mother’s suicide, but also being the only family member who did not have to endure the atrocities his mother, father, and brother did—survivor’s guilt. I think he also feels guilty about not being able to feel closer or more accepting of his father. These incredible feelings of guilt cannot help but manifest themselves in all areas of one’s life. 

 

The last line of the book—where Vladek called Artie by his dead brother’s name—was heartbreaking to me. This illustrated to me that despite all the time Artie spent with his father in his last days, Vladek was still not present in his relationship with Artie. The pain that Artie would likely carry with him throughout his life from this one, last memory would be an unimaginable burden in itself. 

 

I don’t believe this was fair since Vladek and Mala were not living under the extreme conditions they did during the Holocaust, but I can see how it would be difficult for him to let go of those life-saving habits, mindsets, and behaviors. Today, people are more likely to seek professional help for letting go of such tendencies, but needing or seeking counseling in those days was seen as a weakness and something that was all but unthinkable. 

 

"The dialogue, too, [in the books] is boiled down from the real thing. There were only a few times, said Mr. Spiegelman, "when the way something was said [by his father or mother] was so perfect" it had to be preserved. The subtitle of the second volume, "And Here My Troubles Began," was one such sentence. Vladek utters this while telling of his life after Auschwitz -- obviously long after his troubles began. "The dissonance of that appearing in the middle," said Mr. Spiegelman, was part of its strength."

 

You can find the entire article here:

 

 

 

Explanation:

 

Artie recalls one of the saddest moments of his life--the suicide of his mother, Anja. Anja always had a difficult relationship with her son. In his last interaction with her, Anja woke Artie up in the middle of the night to ask if she loved him, and Artie sarcastically said "Sure, ma." Artie felt that his relatives blamed him for Anja's suicide--they believed that because of his own issues (he had recently been released from a mental hospital) Anja had killed herself.

 

Artie's description of Anja's suicide--focusing on the fact that she left no note--is interesting because it suggests Anja's pain or spitefulness, or maybe Artie's denial, or maybe neither. By refusing to leave a suicide note, it would seem, Anja was trying to cause her family as much pain as possible--or else she was in so much pain that she couldn't even write anything. But perhaps it's wrong to make assumptions about Anja's behavior, as Artie clearly does. The fact that Artie faults Anja for not leaving a note suggests that he's still trapped in his own sense of guilt and responsibility, angry at Anja because she left no way for him to resolve anything at all.

 

 

Explanation:

Artie creates a comic book in which he tries to come to terms with his mother's suicide. In the comic book, he depicts himself in a prison cell, yelling at Anja. Artie screams that Anja has sent him to jail for murder: she's killed herself, manipulating the rest of the family to blame Artie for the tragedy. Artie will always be "trapped" in the prison of his own guilt and shame.

The passage is important for two reasons. First, it reinforces the tense relationship between Artie and his family: Artie is an enormously complicated individual, and in many ways he's still living out the legacy of the Holocaust, in the sense that he's living in the shadow of his parents' pain and suffering. Second, the passage reinforces why Artie writes Maus in the first place: as with Anja's death, he thinks that he can use art, fiction, and even humor to move past his own pain and guilt.

 

Vladek and Anja are both flawed people who were deeply affected by their experiences during the war, as would be expected. Both carry great guilt over surviving the concentration camps and deal with their survival in different ways. Ultimately, the pain and guilt leads Anja to commit suicide. This decision haunts her husband and son, who are left to deal with her decision as best they can. The fact that she did not leave a note haunts Artie, who also feels a great amount of guilt over her decision. Vladek spends his life mourning Anja and deteriorates into a stubborn, miserly, and neurotic old man.

 

(Here again, I recommend subscribing to LitCharts for indepth character analysis/explanation of the Maus books.  https://www.litcharts.com/lit/maus/characters/vladek-spiegelman)