Maus 1: Historic-Personal Witnessing

1680 Words7 Pages
Maus 1: Historic-Personal Witnessing Maus, written and drawn by Art Spiegelman, is a comic book story about Vladek Spiegelman’s life during the Holocaust. Spiegelman reports the story as his father tells it, during his visits with him.. Besides the basic text books that students are given in school, Spiegelmans Maus approach the Holocaust from a different perspective. Through Maus he attempts to personally grasp the horrific events that occurred. By approaching this in comic form, Art Spiegelman is able to reach a wide audience of readers. The characters within Maus are also very unique which add a greater meaning to the comic book. Art Spiegelman creates a multi-generational naratives by creating a comic book that is appropriate for children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren who constantly are learning about the Holocaust in textbook and documentary form. At the same time, however, Maus allows readers to view this comic book as a personal story. Although, Maus is relevant to a wide range of people, its story is able to represents a personal aspect of the horrific events that occurred during the Holocaust. In the article from The New York Times, “Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching,” Michael Kimmelman emphasizes the fact that the Auschwitz camp is no longer speaking for itself as a cemetery of the different Jewish people that died. She explains that for more than half a century, Auschwitz was able to just have on display the rooms and warehouses filled with suitcases, shoes, hair, and other remains of the dead. But “ Now those in charge of passing along the legacy of this camp insist that Auschwitz needs an update. Its story needs to be retold, in a different way for a different age” (Kimmelman). Michael Kimmelman suggest that changes to the site will allow visitors to have a deeper understanding as to what actually happened, rather

More about Maus 1: Historic-Personal Witnessing

Open Document