Maus

In Volume I, Vladek explains that some Jews were able to escape because they looked “less Jewish” than others. To reinforce this point, Spiegelman depicts Vladek and Anja as wearing pig masks when they are attempting to evade capture, suggesting that they are disguising themselves as non-Jewish Poles. In reality, Jews could not mask themselves as a means to prevent capture, reminding readers that Judaism is unique because it is both a race and a religion and speaking to just how prominent the persecution of Jews in Europe became in the years prior to World War II.

Spiegelman complicates this mask motif by using masks in a different form in Volume II. In Chapter 1, Spiegelman draws himself (Art) not as a mouse but as a human who is wearing a mouse mask. This masking creates several meanings: It distances Spiegelman the artist from Art the character; it also distances the version of Spiegelman in Volume I (Spiegelman of the past) from the present version. These past and present versions are different because the latter must deal with the repercussions of Volume I’s release. Depicting himself as human is Spiegelman’s way of showing that he is indeed human and is, therefore, impacted by the negative criticism the first volume receives. His wearing of the mouse mask—rather than being an actual mouse—suggests Spiegelman has distanced himself from his Jewishness but is attempting to empathize with Vladek—to “walk in his shoes,” as it were, imagining what Vladek must have felt during the brutality of his time in Auschwitz.

Likewise, Spiegelman’s therapist, Pavel, though Jewish as well, wears a mouse mask during their sessions. Though he is a survivor like Vladek, the mask versus the actual mouse suggests that Pavel may have worked through his trauma in ways that Vladek never does. Thus, Pavel puts on the mask in the session as a vehicle to recall the experience of the Holocaust. Unlike Vladek, however, Pavel can separate himself from his experience (i.e., remove the mask) in a way that Vladek cannot.

As the Jews are stripped of their livelihoods, they create an underground economy from the meager food and coupons available. As the war begins, Vladek advises Anja to keep her knickknacks to sell later, and Vladek uses his remaining valuables to pay for shelter. He bribes his cousins to help them escape a holding house, and some Poles report Jews in hiding once they run out of goods. Vladek also shows Art some of his hidden valuables. In the camps, Vladek pays others in food to fix a shoe and to carry him to the train. As Vladek likes to remind his frequently smoking son, cigarettes are no vice for him, so he could use the rare luxury to trade for extra bread or even vodka. Instead, he saves enough cigarettes twice over to move Anja to new barracks closer to him.

Various forms of the swastika appear in religions and cultures throughout history, such as the Buddhist “manji” symbol. After World War I, however, far-right nationalists in Germany appropriate the symbol to represent White supremacy, and Adolf Hitler eventually makes the Swastika the official flag of Germany following flag-destroying protests in New York (The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The History of the Swastika.” Holocaust Encyclopedia). The Spiegelmans’ first encounter with Nazi Germany occurs when their train travels past a town with the Swastika hanging over it. After Vladek and Anja escape from Srodula, Art draws the road they walk on as a Swastika to symbolize how there “was NOWHERE […] to hide” (127). In addition, the prominent usage of the symbol in the books’ covers is a common excuse to ban the book, particularly in Russia (“Case Study: Maus.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 1 Nov. 2020).

Photographs are an important way of connecting with loved ones in life and death. As they are dating, Anja gives Vladek a picture of her that he keeps in a frame. After her death, Vladek creates a “shrine” of Anja photos on his desk (106), and Art begins “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” with a photo of him with his mother. At the end of the volume, Vladek retrieves a box of photographs of relatives to show to Art. Many of the photos were taken prior to World War II, and, in most cases, the people in them are no longer alive. Vladek laments that all he has left of these family members are these photographs. They offer, however, an important record of the individuals’ existence and show that each person was loved and valued. They underscore the way in which, despite the Nazis’ attempt to dehumanize the Jews, each person was uniquely human and valuable. As Vladek looks at the photos, he becomes overwhelmed by the flood of painful memories rushing over him. Spiegelman depicts this visually by having the photos cascade across Vladek’s body.

While the photographs described above appear only as hand-drawn depictions, Spiegelman includes two reprints of actual photographs near the end of the novel. As the novel closes, Vladek speaks of having a photo of himself taken after the war as he made his way back to Anja in Sosnowiec. Though he is wearing a prisoner’s uniform, Vladek boasts that it is new and that he looks attractive in it. Indeed, Vladek appears rather robust and a stark contrast to photos of emaciated prisoners taken when the camps were liberated. This photo is important because it reminds readers—who have grown accustomed to depictions of Vladek as a cartoon mouse—that he is an actual, living person. The same is true of the photograph of Richieu which Spiegelman reprints in the book’s dedication: This is the photograph which Art references in the book itself as haunting him throughout his life. By reprinting the photo here, he honors the memory of Richieu and also humanizes and personalizes the atrocities caused by the Holocaust.