Consequences Of The Holocaust In The Complete Maus By The Art Spiegelman

The Holocaust refers to the genocide that took place during the World War II, where around six million Jews were killed by the Nazi, a National Socialist German Workers’ Party led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi’s put Jews in the ghettos, and from here some were selected for transportation to extermination camps by use of a freight train. Majority of the Jews were killed in the gas chambers, in addition to this some were placed in concentration camps where they were used as slave labor till they died of exhaustion or disease (Spiegelman 62). In the comic book The Complete Maus by the Art Spiegelman, he has been able to portray his father Vladek’s life experiences during World War II as a survivor. I will be discussing both the short and long term consequences of the experiences of the Holocaust for Vladek Spiegelman. Arts father Vladek experiences overwhelming losses, fear, stresses and anger. This forced him to block his emotions. From the book we see that Vladek is faced with extreme trauma, extensive efforts to rebuild his life and family and also his aging processes. During the Holocaust we see that Vladek lost his property to the Nazi’s as his factory was taken over from him. This thus made life hard for him as it was his source of living, but this doesn’t stop him, consequently he shifts to the black market to earn money, “Don’t you know? All Jewish business have been taken over
It is also evident that he has not healed fully from the experiences of the Holocaust. When Vladek narrates his experiences to his son and reflects on those past moments, he sometimes puts his head down or if he was performing some particular action he slows down for a moment. This shows how much his past still hurts him greatly. “It would take many books, my life, and no one wants anyway to hear such stories.” (Spiegelman