Other Annotated Titles

The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank

Night

Wartime Lies

Hide And Seek

On the Other Site of the Gate

The Cage

Katerina

A Scrap of Time and Other Stories

Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivor

Maus

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

 

Maus



Art Spiegelman Maus: a survivor's tale, I: My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Art Spiegelman Maus: a survivor's tale, II: and here my troubles began. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.

The author, a cartoonist born in the States to concentration camp survivors after the war, takes full advantage of the power of the graphic novel. The autobiography is composed of stark detailed black and white cartoon strips; the effect is dynamic and stunning. The plot consists of two parallel stories, that of the author, and of his father. The author's father, Vladek Spiegelman tells his story of: life in pre-war Europe, in hiding and in the camps, liberation and living in the States where the ghosts of the Holocaust experience continue to haunt both him and his family. The author's story is that of a son trying to come to terms with his father, a man who can only live as an oppressed survivor. Part I centers on Vladek's life in Europe beginning in 1935 through the family's life in hiding. Part II focuses on the family's capture from hiding; life in the concentration camps; their liberation from the camps and life in America. Both books contain significant story movement from Poland to Rego Park, New York where the Spiegelman's currently reside.

[These books were chosen because "Spiegelman's achievement is, on account of its format, unique and also one of the most approachable, accessible, and immediately moving" books on the Holocaust. (Booklist/October 15, 1991) Spiegelman's portrayal of the survivors, both the generation who lived through the Holocaust and their children, is phenomenal.] 


from MAUS:

The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.
       --Adolph Hitler



from MAUS II:

Mickey Mouse is the most miserable ideal ever revealed...Healthy
emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable you
that the dirty and filth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria
carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of
animal...Away with Jewish brutalization of the people! Down with
Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross!
        --newspaper article, Pomerania, Germany, mid 1939s

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