The Complete Maus Sparknotes

The Holocaust was a terrible event that left few Jewish survivors. In the graphic novel “The Complete Maus”, (Maus I and Maus II), Art Spiegelman writes about his father’s personal experiences of surviving the Holocaust, while also showing Vladek and his problems in the 1970s-80s. The Holocaust stories consist of hiding in many bunkers and hiding spots, working in labor camps while starving, and using connections and bribes to survive just one more day. Vladek was fortunate to survive the Holocaust with his wife, who committed suicide later, and a few of his relatives. Close to 98% of Polish Jews were killed (Wikipedia), but Vladek managed to survive Auschwitz and other life-threatening situations. His skills and resourcefulness influenced

He had just started seeing the Nazi swastika and was drafted into the army. After the Nazis defeated the army, Vladek used his ability to speak German to not get beaten up and was sent to a POW camp. After spending time in bad conditions, Vladek saw a chance to improve his working conditions, so he took it working the jobs that were vacated to support the frontline. In the form of a vision, he was told he would escape on Parshas Truma, a holiday. Vladek got lucky that the Nazis began to release prisoners back to their houses. This situation occurred the way it did solely because the Germans allowed it, Vladek did not influence this to happen. This is the first example of why Vladek’s survival was mainly based on

He and a group of other Jewish survivors managed to be traded out of a concentration camp in a prisoner exchange. After leaving Dachau, the concentration camp, on a train. He was never actually sent to the prisoner exchange but was lucky enough to be free from concentration camps, as the war was almost over. However, before they were free, they were stopped by a Nazi patrol and overheard that they were going to be shot that night. The next morning, all of the Nazis from that patrol were gone, and it was overheard that it was because the head officer’s girlfriend pleaded for him to leave the Jews alone. While the group was traveling, they encountered another Nazi patrol. The group was put into a barn and assumed they would all be shot. The same thing happened when they got lucky that the patrol didn’t care enough to kill them all. Survival in this situation was pure luck, as the only thing Vladek did was not get on the Nazi’s bad side. He had nothing to do with them leaving the Jews without killing them first. This is my third reason why Vladek would not have been able to survive without great amounts of