By recounting his horrific experiences from the Holocaust, Vladek "passes down" his traumas to Art. This is to say that even though Art did not physically experience the Holocaust, he has a clear mental picture of what his father experienced. Due to his father's first hand accounts, Art possesses an understanding for the Holocaust far greater than the typical textbook version that the majority of people have come to understand. The Holocaust is much more personal for Art as its tragedies hit close to home. Thus he can actually feel the trauma of the Holocaust.
The choice of using a graphic novel assists Art's storytelling in that it give the reader a visual representation of the story. The flow of conversation makes the story easy to follow along with, while giving it a "down to earth" feel for an event as traumatic as the Holocaust. Had the story been written in the normal context of a novel, the reader would surely take away a vastly different feel for the story. The "feel" ascertained from a graphic novel is different in that it focuses more on the actual story, if you will, in that the reader is able to see the representation of who is talking. This negates the reader from visualizing characters in his/her head, which allows them to concentrate solely on the story itself.
Hampton, I thought it was interesting that alluded to how living first hand with Vladek would give you a better representation of the Holocaust than reading it in a typical textbook. I think this is very true and goes to say that schools that wish to effectively teach history lessons, as powerful as the WW2 Holocaust, should accompany the lessons with texts such as Maus that give more insight than the basic facts.
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