Trauma In Maus By Art Spiegelman

Maus and the effects the Holocaust has on younger generations

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a comic book about his journey to uncover his father’s past while struggling to mend their unsteady relationship. While interviewing his father, Artie realizes just how much trauma his father had endured in the Holocaust. Through gathering information from his father Artie realizes that he had accumulated some of the same paranoia from his parents. The second generations of Jewish people specifically the descendants of Holocaust survivor’s acquire a large amount of grief, depression, and anxiety from their parents through various ways. In Artie’s case he was inflicted with the grief of not having endured the Holocaust like the rest of his family, whereas

he acquired the depression gene from his mother, who suffered with mental health issues. As for the paranoia that was offset by his parents reminiscing on their time spent in concentration camps. In all Maus was a book for Artie Spiegelman to conclude the story of his father’s past and relieve his conscience of all the guilt that was transmitted to him through the structure of his family.
It is evident in Maus that Artie has a lot of trauma from his parent’s experiences.

Not only does Artie feel guilty for being the only member of his family who did not suffer through the Holocaust, but also for taking his mother for granted. Both Artie’s parents dealt with some sort of extensive trauma through their lives, because of their experiences in the Holocaust. Vladek Spiegelman had a habit of hoarding things and conserving anything he found useful, which was a result of the technique he used to survive in Auschwitz. As for Artie’s mother, she suffered with depression all along, but the severity of her situation took its toll and lead her to take her own life in 1968 when Artie was just 20 ( Maus I, 100). The death of his mother lead Artie to feel abandoned and imprisoned by the new situation he was forced into and resented her for it. The reader can see that Artie suffers with the inability to relate to his father predominately in book one. It is not until book two when Artie gives the reader an idea of how traumatic his paranoia about the Holocaust was and how the guilt inflicted by his parent’s experiences affected him. In the beginning of Maus II Artie tells his wife Francoise about how he feels privileged to have been given a better life than his family and wished that he endured Auschwitz with them so he could understand them better (Maus II, 16). Artie also recalls having vivid dreams of being dragged out of class by S.S. Men and would on occasion picture

Zyklon b gas leaking from the shower (Maus II, 16).
There are multiple studies that have concluded that the second generations of Jewish children, descendants of Holocaust survivors have a different genetic makeup causing them to have a harder time coping and recovering with traumatic experiences. In a recent study scientist Rachel Yehuda concluded that descendants of Holocaust survivors have low levels of cortisol, which is a hormone that helps the body recover from traumatic experiences. Along with low levels of cortisol, descendants of Holocaust survivors also produce high levels of an enzyme that deplenishes any existing cortisol (Rodriguez, ScientificAmerican.com). Epigenetics is the study of modifications of genes in the DNA of an organism. The study also founded that descendants with the stress hormone profile and if their mother experienced the Holocaust first hand would make them prone to post traumatic stress disorder (Rodriguez, ScientificAmerican.com).In this case the epigenetic study would give a reason for Artie’s paranoia and his ineffective response to stress. The chief psychologist of AMCHA in Jerusalem observed the transmission of trauma of survivors to their children that did not undergo the same horrors (Kellermann, Transmission of Holocaust Trauma, yadvashem.org). He observed how the parents passed on their psychological damage to their children. This occurs in various forms and different degrees; a common one is when the parent projects feelings or grief of the Holocaust to the child. In a study done by the National Israeli Center for Psychological Support of Survivors found that trauma is transmitted in four main ways. They theorized that trauma was passed down by psychodynamics, sociocultural, family systems, and biologically (Kellermann, Transmission of Holocaust Trauma, yadvashem.org).Survivors of the Holocaust never intended to impose their fears upon their children, but coincidentally transmitted the same terror into the second generation as being tactics used to scare them by the Nazis. The extreme experience that survivors had to endure still haunts them today and has established barriers in their relationships with their children. At a conference in Toronto, Canada, 200 descendants of Jewish survivors congregated to meet other descendants that share similar challenges in life and relationships with family members that survived the Holocaust (Sarick, Second Generation Challenges, cjnews.com). An attendant at the conference, who was born in Canada after the war, said his parents reminded him of the Holocaust constantly as a child. “They told me everything, in the hope they would avoid it forever and forever, and that is an enormous burden for a child,” said Ekstein (Sarick, Second Generation Challenges cjnews.com). These children of survivors grow up with a strong amount of guilt and just by listening to the gruesome events of the Holocaust. Although the evidence is very compelling there are “experts” that say Yehuda’s research was inaccurate, because she only used 22 descendants of Holocaust survivors and 32 men and women that endured the Holocaust first hand (Yasmin, Chicagotribune.com). Whether or not the epigenetic study is accurate, the fact that there are other second generation Jewish men and women who are descendants of Holocaust survivors who have gone on record to say how they have suffered because of the trauma transmitted to them debunks both studies. The research is only half important to the children of Holocaust survivors, what really matters are that their suffering and history is acknowledged by society.
The acclaimed second generation of Jewish descendants often pick careers in fields that are care driven including social workers, doctors, and teachers (Sarick, Second Generation Challenges, cjnews.com). This is because of their need to keep things at ease and like many of the descendants that attended the convention in Toronto; they felt like the caregivers for their parents at a very young age and never wanted to rock the boat. In a sense these second generation children felt the need to be the perfect children, because their parents endured so much, why should they have to put up with their teenage angst (Sarick, Second Generation Challenges, cjnews.com). Another reason for their behavior towards their parents was because they felt bad for them for having to go through such trauma as that of the Holocaust. As for Artie, he always felt sibling rivalry with his older brother Richieu, who died in the Holocaust. He never had the chance to grow up so he remains an idea of the best son, his parents could ever have. (Maus II, 15). Artie never had the opportunity to prove he could be the best son his parents always wanted, because in their mind that son had already died. Ironically he did not choose the caretaker career unlike many others in the same position as him. Although he did not pick the lifestyle his father intend for him, Artie’s decision to be a writer gives him a different edge and in return gives the second generation a voice and a way out of their pain and suffering. Similar to Artie there is another author and poet who goes by the name Elizabeth Rosner, who is also the child of Holocaust survivors. She is an accredited author who wrote Survivor Café, a novel that goes into depth about the trauma shared from parents that survived Auschwitz, Rwanda, and Hiroshima (Wall, jweekly.com). Her writings are another example of descendants that are unable to relate to other people in a world in which no one else can understand, but descendants alike.
In conclusion, it is evident in many studies that second generation descendants of Holocaust survivors are transmitted a great deal of trauma from their parents by both biological and sociocultural.

As for Art Spiegelman specifically, he dealt with a lot of his trauma by publishing comics that illustrated his dysfunctional family life. When taking in consideration the research done by Rachel Yehuda and the National Israeli Center for Psychological Support of Survivors of the Holocaust and the Second Generation then it is easier to see how descendants have acquired the trauma and depression genetically. How this affected generation has obtained these mental health issues is only part of the problem. The other half is getting the recognition that they deserve for both their suffering and their parents. It is completely unfair that an entire second generation of Jewish descendants feel burden by their parents past and are traumatized by the experiences they had to endure before they were even born. Ironically, though so many of them like Art Spiegelman take on their pain and turn it into books for future generations to understand just how extensive the trauma of the Holocaust was. By producing Maus Art gave an entirely different visual of the family dynamic with Holocaust survivors for readers everywhere. He also managed to include a voice for the descendants who have relationship issues with their parents and suffer with severe mental pain. Two very distinct characteristics

about Maus in which makes it stand out from other stories about the Holocaust is that it gives representation to descendants of Holocaust survivors, who are usually overlooked when discussing the topic and the fact that it is a comic book makes it susceptible to a bigger age range of people. The book is an effective and vital component in helping the second generation keep the memories of their families and the true story of the Holocaust alive.