One particular part of the book that hit home was when Vladek was trying not to get drafted into the army. I could see my grandpa telling my uncle exactly what Vladek’s father told him. Vladek said, “…the next year Father wanted I would again do the same thing. But I begged him and went in 1922 to the army…” (Maus 47). My uncle was a soldier in the Polish Army in the early 1980s just as Vladek was in 1922. Just like Vladek’s parents my grandparents didn’t want one of their sons to be part of the army in fear that he would not come home alive. The determination, persistence, and will of Vladek and my uncle is what led them both to becoming soldiers for Poland. While my uncle didn’t fight in any war like Vladek did, it was very easy for me to visualize my uncle taking Vladek’s place in this book.
Like Vladek, my uncle would not want to shoot a gun. It wasn’t because he didn’t know how to shoot a gun; it was because he couldn’t kill anyone. Vladek asked himself, “Why Should I kill anyone?” (Maus 48). I never asked my uncle if he had killed anyone while in the army, but I highly doubt he did. I believe that like Vladek if someone was shooting at him than he would shoot back just like Vladek did to stay alive. It was spine chilling to visualize any relative of mine being a soldier during this time, since if they didn’t die they most likely would have became a Nazi soldier. Polish soldiers hated Hitler, but being a soldier for Hitler was better than dying or being sent to an extermination camp to die a painful death.
Another part of this book that I can relate to was the description of how Vladek’s family had to use food coupons to feed their family. Vladek’s father-in-law explained to him that “each of us gets coupons for 8 ounces of bread a day, and a tiny bit of margarine, sugar a gram per week. That’s all,” and that is exactly what my parents had while growing up (Maus 45). Food was scarce and you ate just enough to get you through to the next meal. Candy and special treats were far and few between. Unlike Vladek’s rich family-in-laws my family didn’t have the money like they did and couldn’t simply go to the black market to get what they wanted.
As if not having enough to eat wasn’t enough, your family’s safety was always in jeopardy. Seeing that Poland wasn’t the safest or best place to live Vladek wanted to get out of Poland and seek refuge in Hungary. Artie’s father explained to him that “For a longer time it was better there in Hungary for the Jews…” (Maus 147). and for Vladek the decision to move to Hungary was easy. Both my parents came over to America when they were in their 20s and neither one regrets their decision to move to America. Vladek wanted to move so his family could be safer for a few more months, and my parents moved so that they could live a better life then they could ever imagine in Poland. Relating my own families story to Vladek’s I could make many connections. Theoririst Hayden White had theories that could also be connected to the book. This theorist had a unique way of looking at history.
Theorist Hayden White forced people to look at history in a different light. In one of Hayden White’s books about metahistory White makes a statement that when history is converted to a narrative then “ the narrative actually produced, becomes a content, an object of reflection on the basis of which the truth about history-in-general can be asserted on the rational grounds…” (93). This being said my reading of the ten pages shows Spiegelman trying to tell the story of the Holocaust through truths of tragedy. White goes on to say, “…but these truths are only poetically figured there as the forms of historical representations whose contents are the actual life dramas lived by individuals and peoples at specific times and places” (93). This shows that the story told in Maus wasn’t just a reiteration of what really happened during the Holocaust. It was a story that tells historical accounts of what actually occurred during the Holocaust for Vladek and his family.
According to White history is not reproduced; history evokes reality. Thus Vladek is reminding himself and his son of the life he lived during the Holocaust instead of reproducing the story of his life. Not knowing it when I replaced Vladek with my uncle I was evoking reality through history and not reproducing it. When I was reviewing the 10 pages in the reading I was doing what White argues history does which is evoking reality. History that evokes reality goes deeper than the words on the page. It goes behind the events and focuses on the emotions and hardships that Vladek went through.
To help explain history four modes of emplotment may be used to revisit history and they are: romantic, comedy, tragedy, satire, or a combination of the four modes. Art Spiegelman uses the emplotment tragic for his book Maus. “Tragedy approaches the culmination of an action, carried out with a specific intention, from the standpoint of the agent who sees deployed before him a world which is at once a means and an impediment to the realization of his purpose” (White 94-95). At the end of Vladek’s life story during the Holocaust he realizes he was fighting a battle that he could never win. Vladek’s purpose in life was not to save his family by becoming a soldier, using money to buy extra food, or moving his family out of harms way. His number one purpose was to tell his family’s story to his son Artie.
Another way Spiegelman uses the satire of tragedy is with the fall of the protagonist. Vladek is trying to be the master of the world when he tries to save his family, but in actuality Vladek sees “some festive occasion, [just to realize they are] false or illusory ones; rather, there are intimations of states of division among men more terrible than that which incited the tragic agon at the beginning of the drama” (White 9). When Vladek became a soldier he was trying to play the role of the hero in which he kills everyone and saves his family. As Vladek’s story goes on he gradually realizes that he is going to lose and lose badly. There is hope when Vladek and his family can go into the black market to buy more food, which the food coupons will not give them, but everything is taken away from them bit by bit. The story of Vladek’s family started with hope and ended with despair and un-repairable damage. This story is I fear will be how many stories of the Darfurian’s will end.
The Holocaust has affected millions of Europeans many of which were Jewish. Reading Maus and other Holocaust literature made it seem that surviving that Holocaust was like trying to win a game where the odds of winning were 1 in a billion. No matter how careful or tactful you thought you were being it was just a matter of time before you slipped up. In 6th grade I read the book The Devil’s Arithmetic and reading Maus reminded me of it. In The Devil’s Arithmetic Hannah, the main character, goes back in time to find her relatives trying to survive the concentration camp one day at a time. This happens because Hannah needs to learn to be proud of her heritage and to discover why it is so important to remember traditions. This is exactly what Artie is trying to do by writing his fathers story down.
While I read this book in 5th or 6th grade I still remember what Aunt Eva’s tattoo stands for. These numbers remind me of the way Vladek lived his life. Aunt Eva’s said, “J is for Jew. And 1 because you were alone, alone of the 8 who had been in your family, though 2 was the actual number of them alive. Your brother was a Kommando, one of the Jews forced to tend the ovens, to handle the dead, so he thought he was a 0” (Yolen 163). Hannah finished explaining Aunt Eva’s tattoo by saying to Aunt Eva, “….you said when things were over, you would be two again forever. J18202” (Yolen 163). The importance of Aunt Eva’s tattoo would live with her forever, not that she could ever forget, and Artie’s father’s tattoo would hold the same importance, but for slightly different reasons.
In Maus the reader is never told the number of Vladek’s tattoo, but I believe it would read something like this. It would begin with J because Vladek was a Jew. Next, would be 1 because he tried so hard to keep the family safe and out of harms way, but in the end everyone had to battle to stay alive on their own. Another 1 would follow because Vladek believed that he was punished by God for not saving his family. Since he had the chance to get his family out Poland that the very beginning. Vladek’s second chance for life would be represented by the 2. The final number would be zero, because Vladek tried to protect his family by being a soldier but failed. It would also represent him being poor, because he tried to use money to keep his family safe. All the money in the world couldn’t save his family from Hitler. According to Vladek he had failed life and had killed or pushed away everyone in his life that meant something to him following his experiences during WWII and Auschwitz.
Being a soldier only showed Vladek that he was trying to single handedly save his family, and it was to big of a task for him to take on by himself. Food coupons combined with money helped Vladek’s family live comfortably, although it only prolonged the inevitable. That everyone was going to die before the war was over. Finally at the end of the book Vladek finally realizes that leaving Poland was the only way he was ever going to be able to save his family, but he leaves Poland because he could not continue to live in a place where his family was exterminated. Aunt Eva and Vladek will never forget WWII and the concentration camps for as long as they live.
History repeats itself and this holds true to the story of the Holocaust. In the current media they are always talking about Darfur. Similar to WWII it took too long for people to step in and stop the extermination of human life. The Holocaust took place in Europe during World War II and Darfur is taking place now in Sudan. The current problems in Darfur were some of the exact same problems that millions of people suffered during the Holocaust.
While reading Maus I couldn’t help but start seeing similarities with what Vladek was going through with what people are going through in Darfur. I can’t start to imagine what the millions of people in Sudan are going through on a daily basis, but looking at Vladek’s story is a starting point.
Artie’s dad, Vladek, chose to be drafted into the army even though his family was trying to convince him not to go. Vladek wanted to fight for his country and for his family, but like many other Polish soldiers, including Vladek, they were overpowered by Hitler. In Darfur its soldiers are being overpowered just as the Polish soldier were. According to the Save Darfur website the people of Sudan need protection and the U.N. Security Council authorized 17,000 additional UNAMID peacekeeping troops to be sent to protect the people of Darfur. (Learn) These additional soldiers have never made it to Darfur to help its people and this leave many people displaced from their homes.
Hitler and his Nazis accounted for the death and displacement of millions and millions of Jews. Vladek’s family was no exception. To try and preserve the existence of his family Vlaked enlisted in the Polish army only to discover he couldn’t shoot a gun at another human being. For Hitler, the government in Sudan and the Janjaweed this was no problem. Seven of the eight largest displacements during Darfur in 2007 resulted from government or Janjaweed attacks. Not only did the government kill its people it also refused basic needs to them, such as food.
In Maus Vladek explains that his family needs to ration their food because food coupons limit the amount of food a family can get their hands on. For Vladek’s family they were able to eat until they were full, because money could be used to buy additional rations of food for the family. The Darfurians do not have this luxury. Starting off the 2008 year the World Food Program’s Humanitarian Air Service received no funding. (Learn) This meant that Darfurians would continue to die from malnutrition and starvation, because there was not enough food available to feed the refugees. Six million dollars were funded last minute but by May 2008 all this money was dried up and used. (Learn) It is very difficult to see many these people suffer and not do enough about it.
My heart goes out to all those that have suffered from the Holocaust. It is even harder for me to watch the news and see Holocaust II happening all over again with Darfur. For Vladek and his family money was not issue. If they would have known that the main goal of the Holocaust was to exterminate the Jewish population than they would have left as soon as possible. Vladek’s family was wealthy enough that they could have fled Poland without any of there belongings and just buy new things when they got to America, Hungary, or anywhere they wanted.
For the people suffering in Sudan money is a big problem. The people are dirt poor and most only own the clothes on their backs. The area is very there is not humanitarian assistance being send to help Darfur. Government power is so strong that millions of people are going to be killed before any significant action are done to stop the genocide. According to the former U.N. undersecretary- general no less than 400,000 people have been killed as the conflict in Darfur continues and at most 2.5 million Darfuris have fled their homes. (Learn) Refugee camps have been set up in Chad and the Central African Republic but more action is needed.
Works Cited
“Learn.” SaveDarfur. June 2008. 24 Nov. 2008
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: a survivors tale: my father bleeds history. New York : Pantheon Books, 1992.
White, Hayden. Metahistory: the historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
Yolen, Jane. The Devil’s Arithmetic. New York, N.Y. : Trumpet Club, 1991.
