Habibeh Marron
Maus
By Art Spiegelman
Historical Context
Rotation #2
Pages 72-127
The cats and the mice
The World War II. Hard for everybody, but for the Jews: their worst nightmare. “Everybody-Every Jew from the train got very excited and frightened. “Look!“ It was the beginning of 1938-before the war- hanging high in the center of town, it was a Nazi flag.“ (Spiegelman 32) This piece of art Maus by Art Spiegelman shows its controversy through the words and drawings of a Polish Jew. Spiegelman was born in America in 1948 just after the World War II (Wikipedia). Imagine all the stuff Spiegelman´s family went through during the war. Why to stay quiet? Through a graphic novel the controversy of this historical event from the affected side of the issue is explicit. Even though we are not Jews, one must feel how tough was for the Jews to be killed with no good reason. “This town is Jew free. It was many, many such stories- Synagogues burned, Jews beaten with no reason, whole towns punishing out all Jews-each story worst than the other“ (Spiegelman 33). Our main character and his dad found out that the vestiges the war left were important enough to write a book about it.
In this book there was presented one side of the story. Everyone is the war was disadvantaged-the germans to- but the ones that always kept fighting were the most weak ones. The Jews that survived after the war-just like our characters and the author´s family itself- wanted for their voice to be heard. Lots of Jews wrote books about the war such as Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay a book that tells us about why the Jews were unsatisfied after all and they wanted to show the world, to make us understand.
“I still want to draw a book about you… the one that I used to talk you about. About your life in Poland and the war.“ This book is controversial because it shows the history we have in our past and how nor the Jews or anyone must be able to repeat ever again. The plot itself of this novel is a protest against the way of thinking of the people, it shows explicitly the devastating events we are now avoiding for shame. A vivid, simple, example of the banality of evil we applied to this topic is avoiding the words concentration camp that mean: “a camp in which people are detained or confined, under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.“ (Holocaust Encyclopedia). This tells us everything.
To summarize we should think about the voice that can't be heard. The voices that want to shout for justice and attention. Hear this voices, the stories they tell, because this is the only way we can make sure this must never happen again.
To summarize we should think about the voice that can't be heard. The voices that want to shout for justice and attention. Hear this voices, the stories they tell, because this is the only way we can make sure this must never happen again.
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