"Maus": Disturbing Revelations

Art Spiegelman's "Maus" brings up many troubling aspects of WWII, namely that of Jewish people in Europe. It does so in the form of a graphic novel. The drawings add a unique component to the story because often books recounting Holocaust survivor experiences are in novel form with few if any photographs. The drawings create a visual (obviously). There are many points in the first half of the story which I found troubling. One such part is on page 121 when Vladek (Art Spiegelman's father) discovers that cake is to be had in the ghetto if one can pay the 75 zlotys for a slice. The man who sells the cake goes around collecting the ingredients from houses of people who have been sent to Auschwitz. Vladek buys some of the cake for himself and Anja, his wife. I found this situation troubling because while I understand that selling the cake helps people survive, it seems disturbing that they are making money off of the misfortunes of others. Furthermore, I was disturbed that Vladek didn't seem to think about the ethics of the situation, although we can't know for sure because he may never have told Art about any emotions he had about it and we are reading the story which has been filtered through Art.

Another part of the book I found disturbing was on page 110 when some children in the ghetto were going to be taken to Auschwitz and were unable to stop crying because they were afraid. The Nazi response was to murder these children by bashing them against a wall. This scene is upsetting for many reasons, not least of which is how sad was the fate of these innocent victims. But I found the scene troubling for another reason: I wondered to myself how many of these soldiers who were murdering these children had children themselves in Germany or had much younger siblings or nieces and nephews. I have always been dismayed by the ease with which the Nazis were made to believe that Jewish people were less than human and therefore killing them was perfectly acceptable. When a child is crying and screaming from fear, killing him or her, especially in such a cruel fashion, seems like the opposite of what should be the natural response - to attempt to calm the child.

In both of the above situations, the response of people to what has happened is strange to me. The latter example is much more disturbing than the former, but they both have their negative aspects.