Maus

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Part 1, Chapters 1-2

Reading Check

1. Why does Spiegelman include the story of Vladek and Anja’s courtship?

2. What does Vladek do while he tells Art his story?

3. Who is Lucia?

4. What does Vladek find in Anja’s closet?

Multiple Choice

1. Why doesn’t Vladek want the story of his courtship with Anja included?

A) He is embarrassed to be attracted to such a plain woman.

B) He doesn’t want anyone to find out how promiscuous he was as a young man.

C) He doesn’t think it should be included in a book about the Holocaust.

D) He thinks it is disrespectful to Art’s dead mother.

2. What was problematic about Anja’s friend from Warsaw?

A) He was a communist.

B) He was in love with Anja.

C) He stole things from Anja’s parents.

D) He was a Nazi informant.

3. What did the police find in the seamstress’s apartment?

A) a Jewish family

B) a spy

C) a kidnapped child

D) communist papers

4. What does Vladek’s father-in-law give him?

A) a watch

B) a textile factory

C) a house

D) a dowry

5. When does Vladek see a swastika in person for the first time?

A) on the train ride to the sanitorium

B) on a soldier’s armband while on his way to work

C) on a poster in a shop window

D) on the sign of a protester

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Vladek tell young Artie about friends?

2. What does Art assume happened to the Bielsko factory?

3. How does Spiegelman physically represent his mother’s mental illness on the page?

4. What happens to Anja after she gives birth to Richieu?

Part 1, Chapters 3-4

Reading Check

1. How did Vladek’s father avoid being drafted into the Russian army?

2. How does Vladek avoid being beaten by the German soldiers who capture him at the river trenches?

3. What does Vladek do to stay healthy and strong in the P.O.W. camp?

4. How does Vladek get out of the P.O.W. camp?

5. What does Vladek give to Oblech’s daughters?

Multiple Choice

1. What does Vladek see through his gun’s scope on the river?

A) a farmhouse

B) a Nazi officer

C) nothing

D) a tree

2. Who is Jan?

A) a fellow Jewish soldier

B) Vladek’s commanding officer

C) the man Vladek killed

D) a Red Cross nurse

3. What must Vladek do at the labor camp?

A) dig trenches

B) build barracks

C) repair plumbing

D) level hilly ground

4. Why does the officer mock Vladek’s hands?

A) He is missing a finger.

B) He has delicate hands.

C) His hands are dirty.

D) His fingers are swollen.

4. Why is Vladek taken to the Protectorate section of Poland instead of back to Sosnowiec?

A) They could kill the Jewish prisoners without repercussion in the Protectorate.

B) The train was not allowed to stop in the Reich section.

C) The prisoners had to be released to government officials there.

D) The prisoners’ families had evacuated to the Protectorate side of Poland.

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Spiegelman represent in the drawings when Vladek is hiding his Jewish identity?

2. Why does Richieu cry when Vladek hugs him after returning from the P.O.W. camp?

3. What does Vladek do with Art’s coat?

4. Why do the Jewish police assist the Nazis in sending the Jews to the concentration camps?

5. Why were the four Jewish merchants hanged and left for a week for everyone to see?

6. Why does Vladeck’s father sneak back over to the bad side in the stadium after being cleared for the good side?

Part 1, Chapter 5

Reading Check

1. Who is Françoise?

2. What is Art doing when Mala calls?

3. What does Lolek bring to the bunker?

4. What does Vladek pick up from the street?

5. What does Vladek do with the man who turned the family into the Gestapo?

Multiple Choice

1. Why does “The Shooter” let Vladek go?

A) because Vladek shares his rations

B) because Vladek is Haskel’s relative

C) because The Shooter is distracted by someone else

D) because the Shooter thinks Vladek is not a Jew

2. What makes everyone sick?

A) tainted water

B) the soup rations

C) Pesach’s cake

D) a German practical joke

3. Where is the first bunker the Vladek makes?

A) in a shed

B) in the attic

C) under the stairs

D) in a coal storage cellar

4. What does Vladek say to Anja when she breaks down in the ghetto?

A) Dying is easy, but you must struggle for life.

B) Surrendering is easy, but they must stand their ground.

C) Giving up is easy, but they must survive for their children.

D) Despairing is easy, but they are some of the lucky ones.

5. What does Vladek give Anja instead of food?

A) some hay

B) a rose

C) a piece of wood

D) a book

5. Who does Vladek call out for in the bank vault?

A) Richieu

B) Anja

C) Mala

D) Art

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is “Prisoner on the Hell Planet”?

2. What happens to Richieu?

3. How do the Nazis find Vladek and the family in their bunker?

4. Why does Vladek have to pay his cousin to help him and the family?

5. Why doesn’t Haskel help Anja’s parents?

Part 1, Chapter 6

Reading Check

1. What does Vladek bring back to Anja in the shed?

2. Which streetcar does Vladek always ride in?

3. What makes Anja scream in the storage locker?

4. Who does the smuggler call from the train station?

5. What did Vladek do with Anja’s diaries?

Multiple Choice

1. What does Art show Vladek at the beginning of the chapter?

A) early sketches of the book

B) pictures he found of Anja

C) an article about the Holocaust

D) a letter from another survivor

2. With whom do the Spiegelmans try to seek refuge first but are denied?

A) Vladek’s English teacher

B) a former coworker

C) the wife of a dead friend

D) Richieu’s Polish governess

3. What lives with the Spiegelmans in the barn?

A) a sheep

B) a cow

C) a horse

D) a snake

4. In what subject does Anja tutor Mrs. Motonowa’s son?

A) French

B) German

C) math

D) writing

5. Where do Vladek and Anja eventually decide to go?

A) Sweden

B) Russia

C) France

D) Hungary

5. Where does Vladek hide the watch?

A) in a jar of shoe polish

B) in a wedge of cheese

C) in a secret pocket in his coat

D) in a loaf of bread

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Art worried about showing how frugal his father?

2. What does Mrs. Kawka tell them to say if they are found in her barn?

3. What do the children do when they see Vladek on the street?

4. Where is Miloch hiding?

5. How does Vladek get the other prisoner to share his care package?

Part 2, Chapters 1-2

Reading Check

1. Why did Françoise convert to Judaism?

2. What lie does Vladek tell to make sure Art calls him back?

3. What does Vladek do to save matches?

4. What were the shoes the prisoners are given in Auschwitz made of?

5. What does Yidl call Vladek?

6. What does the Gestapo official bring Vladek for fixing his shoe?

Multiple Choice

1. What does Mendelbaum pray for?

A) a piece of string and a shoe that fits

B) a loaf of bread and a glass of water

C) a letter from his wife and a way out

D) a whole night’s sleep and a good meal

2. What languages does the kapo ask about?

A) English and German

B) French and Polish

C) French and German

D) English and Polish

3. What does Vladek bring Mendelbaum?

A) a bowl, a hat, and a letter

B) a spoon, a belt, and a pair of shoes

C) a book, a pencil, and some paper

D) a sausage, two eggs, and some chocolate

4. What did Vladek do with his bingo prize at the Pines Hotel?

A) He traded it for a better prize.

B) He returned it to the store for cash.

C) He gave it to Mala for their anniversary.

D) He gave it to a lady who had a room at the hotel.

5. What does Mancie leave under a rock and tells Vladek it is garbage?

A) a note from Anja

B) directions to the barracks where Anja is

C) a package of cigarettes to add to his bribe

D) a note with an address that he can escape to

6. What jobs does Vladek do at Auschwitz?

A) sewing, cooking, and digging trenches

B) tin work, shoe repair, and black work

C) plumbing, weapon cleaning, and translation

D) mopping, glass repair, and coal shoveling

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why did the Spiegelmans travel Europe visiting orphanages after the war?

2. Why did Abraham write the deceptive letter that convinced the Speigelmans to try to leave Poland?

3. How does the priest convince Vladek that he will survive?

4. How does Vladek avoid being culled?

5. How does Spiegelman illustrate his anxieties over writing his book visually?

Part 2, Chapters 3-5

Reading Check

1. What memory is Vladek reminded of when he sees the man dying?

2. Who gave the prisoners snacks when the train stopped again?

3. Where did Vladek get typhus?

4. Who does Vladek claim saved his life in Dachau?

5. Who helped Anja survive?

6. What do the Americans call Vladek?

Multiple Choice

1. How does Vladek embarrass Art at the grocery store?

A) He falls and claims an employee tripped him.

B) He tries to exchange half-eaten food.

C) He complains loudly about Mala and the will.

D) He insists on using expired coupons.

2. Where did Vladek’s troubles begin?

A) Auschwitz

B) Dachau

C) Hungary

D) Sosnowiec

3. What did the prisoners need to show to get soup?

A) their spoons

B) their numbers

C) their shirts

D) their stomachs

4. What happened to the Germans at the lake?

A) They disappeared.

B) The Americans shot them.

C) The prisoners killed them.

D) They drowned.

5. What is in the box Vladek gives Art?

A) letters from Anja

B) Vladek’s camp uniform

C) a gold watch

D) photos of Anja’s family

6. What does Vladek call Art in the last frame of the book?

A) Richieu

B) darling

C) my son

D) Anja

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why do the men leave their hiding place in the block attic?

2. How did Vladek survive in the train car?

3. Why does Vladek keep irritating the wound on his hand on purpose?

4. What did Vladek have to step on to get across the bathroom floor?

5. How did Vladek manage to get outside into the prisoner exchange group despite being so ill?

6. What did Vladek do in Sweden?