Maus offers a vivid illustration of the gruesome experience of a Holocaust survivor. The Nazi regime and its virulently anti-semitic agenda wrench Vladek Spiegelman from a comfortable lifestyle as a factory owner, and into the nightmare of the death camps Auschwitz and Dachau. Despite Vladek's relative wealth, he exhibits resourcefulness and savvy throughout his trials. Through bribery, charisma and his sheer utility, he forms strategic relationships with the Jewish police officers of the ghetto, the kapo of his camp bunker, and even a few Nazi guards in the camp.
Artie's present-day therapist Pavel urges him to consider that many who survived the Holocaust owe their fortunes primarily to luck. In Vladek's case, however, his luck is certainly augmented by his other assets: In pursuing essential occupations in the camp as a tinman and shoemaker, he simultaneously reduces his vulnerability to execution. Similarly, in placating the kapo, Yidl and many others with bribes and services, he preserves his security. Thus, he is certainly "lucky" to have survived typhus (twice!), but his greater feat was surviving up until that point.
Nevertheless, Pavel's sentiments do have resonance. When Artie recounts how his father seems to insist on Artie's inadequacy, Pavel responds that this might be a manifestation of Vladek's guilt of surviving. Maus reveals a number of instances in which Artie's survival seems to come at the expense of another: His bribe of a Jewish policeman leaves his father-in-law prone; his occupation of tinman leaves others without work (and therefore dispensable); in his absence, others must necessarily occupy the gas chambers or gasoline-filled ditches. As Pavel points out, the victims of the Holocaust were not contemptible because they lacked Vladek's assets and luck. Rather, they were gravely unfortunate. It is with good reason that Vladek might find his life to be ultimately guilt-ridden - he may construe the deaths of others to have allowed his own survival.
These gruesome experiences ultimately cause Vladek to pathologically perpetuate the habits and instincts that allowed him to survive the Holocaust. Artie cites a number of times his frustration and disdain for his father's obsessive frugality, aggressive bartering, and heavy-handed "tutelage." Of course, Vladek's actions are not unmotivated. He considers his instincts essential in a world where the horrors of the Holocaust are an all-too-real possibility (and a not-so-distant memory). Despite Artie's generational detachment from the war, his father has indeed never truly moved on. Perhaps, then, he is not so much taking his guilt out on Artie as he is living in the perpetual possibility of another genocide, forever a victim.
His lessons are lost on Artie, who does not understand their urgency. Divorced from the context, Artie interprets his father's antics as neuroses, and construes their urgent intention as unwanted degradation. Confronted constantly with reminders of a past he never knew, it is understandable why Artie develops an obsession with the Holocaust. Vladek makes it tangible, and offers himself as a surrogate for Artie to experience its horror. Yet unlike Vladek, Artie is wholly unscathed - even psychologically. Pavel even observes Artie as "the REAL survivor" (44), which perhaps Artie owes to Vladek's psychological torment in the same way that Vladek owes his physical survival to the physical torment of other victims.
Finally, Artie's guilt is reinforced through the very nature of his project. Maus ultimately was a significant commercial success, and Artie experiences tremendous guilt over monetizing the stories he collects. Page 41 offers a striking visual of his easel being supported by the corpses of the Holocaust's many victims. On one level, he is exploiting a tragedy for his own gain. On another level, however, I see an echo to the subversion of the Jewish businesses in Poland in which some of the Polish population plundered the vacant businesses and enriched themselves on their spoils. Perhaps in his ultimate profit, Artie feels culpable for the very same plunder.
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