2020

Maus, a survivor`s tale

STORY ORGANIZER
FRANCISCA MATAMALA
Chapter 1: The Sheik

The author of this comic, Artie Spiegelman, who is also one of the main characters in the
story, wrote this story from his point of view, in other words, he is also the narrator of the
story.
He starts visiting his father (Vladek) to listen to his stories about World War II. In this first
chapter, in order to give the readers a context of Vladek`s life, Arthur asked him to talk
about how he met Anja, Arthur´s mother, who many years later killed herself.
Arthur and his father both currently live in the United States, Arthur with his girlfriend and
Vladek with his second wife, Mala, who he doesn´t really get along with.
Back in Vladek`s youth, he lived in Poland and had a “stalker” named Lucia. She wouldn´t
live him alone, they ended up together but Vladek never really liked her. They got to a
point where Lucia insisted in getting married but Vladek refused to. In a trip to visit his
cousin like every holiday, the cousin introduced to Vladek her friend Anja and they fell in
love. He went back home and they wrote to each other. Vladek finally managed to end it
with Lucia and a while later him and Anja got engaged. Lucia was so intense that she
decided to send a letter to Anja talking bad about Vladek. Anja was mad for a while until
he visited her and explained that he used to have that crazy girlfriend, that all the things
she said were lies and Anja believed him.
(Anja lived with her parents in Sosnowlek)
They got married and Vladek moved to one of his father-in-law`s apartments in
Sosnowlek, he was a very wealthy man, he also gave Vladek an ownership of a textile
factory.

Chapter 2: The honey moon

Artie started visiting his father more regularly to hear his stories.
One time, Vladek went to Anja´s house and the police had just arrested their neighbor!
And it was because she was covering Anja, who translated communist messages and
asked her to hide the proofs when she heard that the police were coming. The neighbor
spent some time in jail but they eventually set her free for lack of proofs.
Anja got pregnant of their first kid (Richie), but after that she became depressed and her
parents decided to send her to a sanctuary with Vladek and took care of Richie.
On their way to the sanctuary they saw a Nazi flag and the other passengers of the train
talked to them about terrible experiences that jewish people they knew had lived.
In the sanctuary Vladek kept telling her stories and jokes to keep her happy.
When they got back, the factory had been robbed so they had to start all over again.
Things with the Nazis were getting worse so they started considering moving to another
town.
They were mainly happy until Vladek was called to go to war against Germany, in war he
lost his left eye, which now is replaced by a glass eye.

Chapter 3: Prisoner of war

This time Vladek talks to Artie about how his father also went to war and find it so terrible
that made everything that he could so his sons wouldn´t get into the military. He made
Vladek and his brother get really thin and make them sleep a lot less than what is normal
to get them weak so they didn´t get accepted in the army, this worked with Vladek´s
brother but not with him, he still got into the army.
In 1939, during war, Vladek and his army got taken as war prisoners of Germany, making
them work a lot every day and living in terrible conditions until they had the option of
taking the jobs of german soldiers that had to go to war, working hard too but now at
least sleeping in beds, with a stove and a reasonable amount of food.
One day as a war prisoner, Vladek had a dream in which his dead grandfather told him
that in “Parshas truma” (A jewish festivity) he was going to be liberated. Three months
later Parshas Truma came and this came true! In that moment Vladek realized that every
big event of his life happened in Parshas Truma.
In the train that took them back home, he sat with his friend Rabbi, but after that never
heard from him again. Vladek couldn´t go back directly to his home because it was in the
“Reich” part of Poland so he had to say he had a cousin (he didn`t but he had a friend) in
the “protectored” side of Poland to get down of the train there. He stayed with his friend
some time until he managed to go to Sosnowlek to his father-in-law´s refugee, where Anja
and Riche were staying. Two months after Vladek arrived, his mother died of cancer.
Also in the present, while he was telling these stories, he complained a lot about his
relationship with Mala.

Chapter 4: The noose tightens

In Vladek´s father-in-law´s refugee were staying 12 people. When Vladek got home he saw
that business of jewish people were taken from them, so he started to do some illegal
things to win a little of money. The friend who he was making this illegal movements with,
offered him to give Richie (his son) to other people so they could take care of him away
from Sosnowlek, but Anja refused. His friend´s son got saved because of that and his
friend and his friend`s wife died.
Nazis started deporting Jews, the older ones, those who had too much children and those
with no job. Vladek´s father, sister and nephews got deported.
Anja´s grandparents were supposedly just moved to another town, but what really
happened is that they were taken to Auschwitz and died in the gas cameras.
In the present, Mala tells Artie that her parents died in Auschwitz after her mom spent
months locked up with other Jews. She also complained, as usual, about his relationship
with Vladek and how she couldn´t stand being married to him.

Chapter 5: Mouse holes

In the present, Vladek found a comic that Arthur made about his mother`s suicide. This
made him sad for a while because it was really personal.
Continuing with the WW2 stories… Nazis made all the Jews that still lived in Sosnowlek
move to other town living in smaller houses or even in the streets. Vladek, Anja and her
family lived all in one house, they all got assigned work.
The uncle of Anja´s brother took the kids and other members of the family to where he
lived to keep them safe because he had influences. Years later he heard that Germans
were taking all the people of that town to Auschwitz, his wife refused to that so she
poisoned herself and the three kids (one of them was Richie). The uncle got killed in the
train that was taking him to Auschwitz because he tried to escape.
Very few Jews survived, Vladek had a bunker where they hid but they eventually got
caught. A cousin of him saved them (Vladek, Anja and Vladek`s nephew) and hid them,
saving them from going to Auschwitz. Anja`s parents were taken to Auschwitz and died in
the gas cameras.
After a while they moved to another cousin`s ghetto. Almost all Jews were being taken to
Auschwitz. The guards came to the ghetto so all the people that where hiding there
moved to a bunker until the guards left, Vladek`s nephew refused to keep running and he
just let the Nazi take him. While they were waiting in the bunker, some of them tried to go
get some food but they got caught and died. When the guards left, Anja and Vladek had
nowhere to go.

Chapter 6: Mouse trap

When Arthur arrived in his father´s house to listen to his stories, he found Mala crying, she
talked to him about how bad was the marriage with Vladek.
Going back to Vladek stories… Vladek and Anja went to Sosnowlek and stayed in a “farm”
for a while and then moved with a lady that sold them food in the black market. They didn
´t stay there for free, they paid to her.
They began to consider the idea of running to Hungary because they heard that things
weren´t so bad there. They decided to wait for someone´s nephew to go and see if it was
safe. After a while they got a letter from him saying that he was alright and that it was
safe.
Anja and Vladek decided to go, but it was a trap! They ended up in Auschwitz, where they
were divided between men and women and went through terrible things.
Anja wrote diaries through all this time and Artie asked to Vladek where were those
diaries, Vladek remembered that after she killed herself, he burnt some of her belonging
and among them, her diaries. Artie got really angry and left.