Maus II Chapter 1-2

Maus II Chapter 1-2 Summary

Chapters one and two of Maus II dive even deeper into the relationship with Artie and his father Vladek. We also get our first glimpse of what life is like inside of the concentration camp, Auschwitz and how Vladek and Anja struggle daily to survive. It seems as if relations with Artie and his father are getting worse at an even greater rate as Vladek cons Artie and his wife Francoise into living with them after Mala has allegedly “stole his money and left him.” We get a real glimpse into why Artie has such negative feelings toward his father on his way there. He says that he feels as if he can never live up to his ghost-brother, Richeiu’s, reputation as Richieu is only remember in a photograph, a perfect, flawless photograph. Artie describes out underachieved he feels in comparison to his father as everything that Artie accomplishes is nothing in comparison to Vladek’s surviving the Holocaust. It seems that everything that Artie does while living with his father sets him off. From not eating enough food to using more matches than necessary, Vladek shows just how stingy of a man the Holocaust has made him. Finally though, Vladek continues his story after he and Anja had been sent to the concentration camp, Auschwitz and how Vladek miraculously found different ways to survive. It all starts off as Vladek uses his lingual skills to tutor the kapo, an official who assists the Nazi’s with the prisoners, in teaching him English. This really ends up benefitting Vladek on numerous occasions as he gets to have full meals to eat, a warm place to stay in, better clothes for himself and his friend, and most importantly, the kapo tells him how to survive random selections. After this, Vladek takes up a job as a tinsmith because kapo can no longer protect him with Vladek being his tutor. Vladek takes this job, never having any experience before, but picks it up very quickly. It is in this time that Vladek describes how the food given to the prisoners was never good and it was just enough so that if you ate it you would die more slowly. Fortunately for Anja and Vladek, they find someone who goes to both of the camps so Vladek and Anja are able to communicate to each other through letters until Vladek is transferred to the bigger version of Auschwitz so he can be with Anja. It is here that Vladek picks up a new profession as a shoe maker, one that allows him to stay indoors and work instead of being outside in the cold weather. Then, Vladek described how the gas chambers worked and the brutality of how the Nazis would mercilessly slaughter the prisoners. He also described that some prisoners were burned alive with dead corpses to make the burying easier. Artie is of course horrified by the brutality of how the prisoners were terminated. The entire chapter really gives you a good personal glimpse not only into the terrors of prison life in Auschwitz but the personal struggle that Art Spiegelman had in creating Maus. We as the readers learn that the entire story is from a true, first person view as Art Spiegelman is Artie in the actual story. In this section of the story we see the personal struggles that Art Spiegelman has with writing Maus, and how no matter how hard he tries, he still cannot get a full grasp of what the Holocaust was like. This is why he sees a psychiatrist to council him about the pressures he is under in telling his and his father’s story and to get a better grip on the Holocaust as his doctor too is a survivor.

These two chapters do a lot to advance the story, both in the concentration camp and in Artie’s personal life with his father. What I like so much about this Holocaust story is it actually tells the day-to-day struggles some of the survivors face after the imprisonment. Normally we would not think about things such as this but Maus lets its readers know just how difficult it is to “survive the survivors.” I have really enjoyed reading it thus far and I am excited to see how the story concludes.