OT: Has anyone here read Maus by Art Speigelman?

CAVEDWELLER

CAVEDWELLER

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May 5, 2003
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I'll be the first to admit that I'm a comic book geek, but everybody should read Maus by Art Speigelman. It's the true story of Art's dad, Vladek, who was a polish jew during the german occupation of Poland and survived Auschwitz. Art portrays and draws the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats, etc etc. Mr. Speigelman won a Pulitzer Prize for it, the only one I know of for this type of media. Well here's some links that can explain it better than I.

If someone wants to borrow it let me know and I'll send it to ya, just treat it as your own and send it back when your done.

Art Speigeilman
Maus
 
A truly great book.
If you want to know the fate of Italian Jews, Primo Levi's books are excellent. He was a survivor.
 
I know it well and use it sometimes in my lessons.
It is an interesting approach to this terrible topic. Spiegelman did a great job as the usual "harmless" or "entertaining" medium does not play down the content.
As far as I know there were several comic or trick-film episodes by other authors too. I saw an episode of "The education of little Hans" - a trick-film showing the hitler-youth-education in Germany (more in the row of propaganda-films). There are also some films of the entertainment industry around the early fourties like "The great dictator" (Charlie Chaplin) - a homoristic film that shows Hitlers hybris were funny in a strange way - if he would not have been the criminal and mass murderer he was. Or "The seventh cross" with Spencer Tracy based on a novel by German writer Anna Seghers that showed some truths about German concentration camps when they not really had been discovered by the allies. These comics and films are sometimes more impressive than documentaries and are great to start with a difficult topic - but cannot replace the documentary. The great contribution art can make to historical understanding in this field is also shown by the novel "The wave" by Morton Rhue. Does anyone know these films/books in the US?

Andreas
 
My personal favourite in this genre is "Enemy Ace" by John Pratt. A terrific graphic novel.
 
Originally posted by Mr.BadExample
A truly great book.
If you want to know the fate of Italian Jews, Primo Levi's books are excellent. He was a survivor.
Click to expand...

But if I remember correctly, he committed suicide. Some wounds cut deep and never really heal. :(
 
Discovered it in high school in the school library(!). Couldn't put it down. Read it 2 or 3 times before I graduated there. Forgot about it for over a decade until I saw a stack of them on the sale table at Barnes-A-Million (or was it Books & Noble?). Anyway, had to buy it. Fifteen years later (and older!) and it's still hard to put down. Rather depressing ending though, but at least he didn't sugar coat anything, just told it like it was. Besides, it's a story about the brutality of the Nazis toward the Jews and the realities of war; I guess I shouldn't have expected a happy ending.
 
"Maus" is a remarkable piece of work. What I found fascinating was the contrast between the anger and rage of Art and quiet fatalism of his father, even though it was his father who had suffered the Holocaust. I heard a recent interview with Speigelman, and it sounds like he's as angry as ever.

But I think I like Levi's work "If This Be a Man" (also published as "Survivial in Auschwitz") even more. Levi is not afraid to show that the ones who survived best in the concentration camps were the selfish and ruthless who took advantage of their fellow inmates. Despite this, though, it remains a classic testament to the human spirit.

And I think it's still not 100% sure that he committed suicide; he fell over a balcony in his home, and it may have been an accident, as he left no note or warning. He was nearly eighty years old at the time and recovering from surgery.
 
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