Maus I and Maus II by Art Spiegelman

MAUS I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History

MAUS II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

By: Art Spiegelman

Reviewed by Christy H.

 

Maus recounts the story of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust survivor parents and their time in Auschwitz. He tells the story, however, unconventionally in graphic novel form. With Jewish people drawn as mice and Germans drawn as cats, Maus is unlike any other Holocaust memoir.

Volume one begins with Spiegelman visiting his elderly father Vladek and interviewing him for this book. Through this we learn that Spiegelman’s mother, Anja, died in 1968 by suicide, and Vladek is remarried to a woman named Mala although unhappily. Vladek also begins to tell the story of how he met and married Anja and the many, many trials they endured throughout World War II. First they were in a ghetto, and then bounced from hiding place to hiding place. They eventually decide to escape to Hungary but they are arrested by Gestapo on the train and taken to Auschwitz.

Volume two opens with Spiegelman (in human form wearing a mouse mask) struggling with his success after the release of volume one. He feels guilt for the way he’s portrayed his father and guilt for all the murdered lives his success was built on. It’s a poignant way to break the fourth wall and remind readers of the real lives affected. Back in the story, Vladek continues his story of his life in Auschwitz – how he found out his beloved Anja was alive and how he snuck out letters to her; how he bounced from job to job inside the camp; how he saved every little thing which often times would come in handy later. Spiegelman knows this is the root of Vladek’s extreme and maddening thriftiness but he can’t stop being annoyed by it just the same. Spiegelman received criticism for portraying his father in such a “bad light” but I never saw it that way. Vladek has severe flaws like any human but he’s a very sympathetic character.

Both volumes are tough, heavy reads but ultimately worth it. They are as fascinating as they are heartbreaking. I’m not entirely sure of the reasoning behind Spiegelman’s decision to make everyone animals but I do find it interesting and effective. His black and white art is deceptively simple with much more going on than a first glance would suggest.  Writing this review proved difficult because I don’t feel like I’ve properly conveyed how good this tragic yet touching memoir really is. But I can say I would highly recommend this modern classic, especially to anyone who likes their historical readings a little more personalized.

Survivors Club : the True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat

Reviewed by Brenda G.

            Michael Bornstein was born in an open ghetto in Zarki, Poland, in 1940, after the German invasion. His immediate family included mother, father, and an older brother. He had a large extended family, including his paternal grandmother who lived with his family. 

            Bornstein begins this work with a discussion of a photo taken from movies filmed by the Soviet Union in the days after they liberated Auschwitz. He had not known the films existed until stumbling upon them and excerpts like this photo. He had long refused to provide details of his imprisonment, until he found images of his four-year-old self on a Holocaust denial site. He was finally moved to share his story as a result.

            Bornstein enlisted the help of his daughter Deborah Bornstein Holinstat to tell his tale. With stories from his mother, who survived Auschwitz and other imprisonments, and assistance from other members of his extended family, each with a harrowing tale of survival, Bornstein recounts his experiences in war-time Poland, in Auschwitz, and in post-war Germany prior to his immigration to America.

            This story, though written for children, is housed in our adult collection. Adult readers are reminded of a recent similar book We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter; New York: Viking, 2017, 403 pages, reviewed earlier in this column. Fewer members of Bornstein’s immediate family survived than of Ms. Hunter’s. Both tales are harrowing but Bornstein’s family remained much closer to home during the war than Hunter’s did. To be a Jew in World War II Poland was to be in hell, at least to this reader of these two accounts of Jewish life there.

            Read this book. Read Georgia Hunter’s book. Repeat the vow, “Never again!”

Survivors Club : the True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat. New York : Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2017. 348 pages. Includes photographs, notes on sources, and glossary.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

Reviewed by Brenda G.

While in her teens, Georgia Hunter learned her grandfather, his siblings, and her great- grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Against all odds in far-flung locations, this nuclear family of Polish Jews lived through Hitler’s worst. This book presents a fictionalized account of the trials endured by the family.

The story begins with Addy, given name, ironically, Adolf, working in France as an engineer and wondering should he go home. In 1939 as Hitler’s march through Europe gains strength, Addy muses about what might be happening in Radom, the Polish city where the Kurc family lives. When he attempts to acquire travel documents to Poland, he is denied and told of the dangers he would face, with “Jew” clearly stamped on his passport. A trip home would require travel through German-controlled territory. 

Chapter by chapter, the focus moves to one or more family members and chronicles the miseries they face and the horrors they witness.  The horrors of a packed railroad car, watching others die around them. Months in a Gestapo jail.  Deportation to Siberia from Soviet-controlled Poland.  Starvation.  A special offer of transportation that turns into a death train from which less than a handful of Polish Jews walk away, including Addy’s sister Mila and her daughter. An infant born in the Siberian winter whose eyes are frozen shut every morning. Entombment in the basement of a bombed out convent. Scurvy. Attempts to rescue extended family and in-laws who refuse to accept help in the face of certain death. Work in the Underground. Securing false papers and passing as non-Jewish Poles. Disappearances without explanation.  Harsh working conditions; harsher living conditions; while constantly subjected to the whims of military and political forces.

The book is well-written and researched. Members of the Kurc family are hard-working, intelligent, and resourceful. Despite this, they are unprepared for the horrors unleashed upon them, their neighbors, and Europe as a whole. This is truly a remarkable tale of survival.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Reviewed by Meygan

Before I begin my book review, I want to explain why I chose to reread this book. At the Bristol Public Library, we skim through the pages to make sure no important documents are left behind before we reshelf the books. One day, in my hand I held a copy of Anne Frank’s diary. It was a required reading when I was in school, but that was many years ago and I couldn’t remember how the book impacted my reading when I was a child. I told myself that I would eventually reread it one day. Just as I was about to shelve the book, I notice there was a small piece of paper in the front pages. It read,

Dear Reader,

Though I have never seen or met you, I suppose there is a fairly good chance that this book was imposed upon you by a school teacher. Even if you despise reading, I think you will find this book to be highly interesting, and a beautiful and rare portrait of a young girl.

Once you have completed the book, tuck a note of your own inside the pages. Tell the next reader what you thought of the book, and instruct them to do the same. Enjoy the book!

-The Doctor (Excuse my atrocious handwriting)

I didn’t want The Diary of a Young Girl to become a book that I read once and filled it away forever. So I checked it out that day and I am so glad I did.

I am going to assume that everyone knows that Anne and her family lived in a secret annex for over two years, hidden away from the Nazis during WWII. Some people may remember Anne and her family for being found and killed in the concentration camps. But what some people may not remember Anne for is living. Anne Frank was wise beyond her years. I can’t imagine being 13 years old and having to hide from the world. Puberty is difficult for a young girl anyways, but not being to surround yourself with your peers and having to put on a “mask” to please 8 other people you live with would make anyone feel like they are going insane. 

The family dynamics can be surprising. Even though Anne respected her mother, they didn’t have a close bond. She was much closer to her father and absolutely adored him, even when she could feel them drifting apart. Another part you may find fascinating is Anne’s optimism. Sure, she vents about fights between the families and how she wishes to go outside and to school again, but she remains hopeful that the war will end soon and she and her family will be free. Unfortunately, Anne died of typhus just two months prior to the end of WWII. 

As I previously mentioned, Anne was highly intelligent. She loved reading about mythology and of course, she loved to write. “Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?” Anne wrote in her diary. Anne’s diary provided us fun details such as her getting to have another dinner with her family and how she oh so badly wanted to become a young woman! Readers also get to experience the moments of horror when burglars break into the building they are hiding in and the families think they have been found. Thanks to her diary, Anne proved that a lot of information takes place in the mind of a young girl. Actually, Anne’s father cut many passages out about Anne’s mother and Anne becoming very familiar with her teenage hormones and body. But the passages were later on added to the diary for publication, especially after additional pages of her diary were found. 

Anne also wrote, “I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.” Anne did just that. Her diary has forever impacted the world and has taught us the true terror of the holocaust. Because of her diary, her voice will never die out. 

If you have already read The Diary of a Young Girl, I urge you to read it again. It is not a satisfying read. We know that Anne did not survive the concentration camps, but we still can’t help to feel hope that Anne will be recused. Even though I knew her ending, I felt like someone stabbed me in the heart when I read about Anne’s death. I am glad I read it now that I am older so I can truly appreciate her remarkable memoir. I have a different perspective when I reread this book as an adult. I believe as a child, I focused more on Anne’s tragic ending and how devastating it was that she was found. But when I reread her diary, I felt a deeper appreciation for Anne because I can remember dealing with my 13 year old feelings, and how difficult it was to be a teenage girl at times when all I wanted to do was grow up and become an adult.  

I will leave you with the most perfect words I have ever read about Anne’s diary, said by Ernst Schnable: “Her voice was preserved out of the millions that were silenced, this voice no louder than a child’s whisper… It has outlasted the shouts of the murderers and has soared above the voices of time.”