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Maus II, Chp I Mauschwitz | MissBrooksEnglish | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Maus II, Chp I Mauschwitz
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Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
This content analyzes Part Two of a graphic novel, focusing on the author Art Spiegelman's complex process of creating the work. It delves into his personal struggles with guilt, identity, and the immense challenge of representing the Holocaust, juxtaposing historical trauma with contemporary anxieties and familial relationships.
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all right hello year 12 we are now
looking at part two which begins with
this image on page 165 in your novels
now in your novels you will
have which is not in this one but there
is a quote and it says it's from the
newspaper article a newspaper article in
the paper
Pomerania from Germany in the mid 1930s
and it says Mickey Mouse is the most
miserable ideal ever revealed healthy
emotions tell every independent young
man and every honorable youth that the
dirty and filthy covered Vermin the
greatest bacteria car carrier in the
animal kingdom cannot be the ideal type
of animal away with Jewish brutalization
of the people down with Mickey Mouse
where the swastika cross now that
extracts on page 164 of your novel and
that's an example of the na Nazi
propaganda and uh and the way in which
they portray the Jews as mice who were
not in fact great and um Mickey Mouse
would never be a desirable animal and
should never be looked up by children
because um he is in fact and they are in
fact Vermin the lowest form of life um
and deserve in the eyes of Nazis to be
eradicated um then on the next page over
which is 165 which is this one in your
novel you've got this um picture and
he's dedicated this book for rishu and for
for
NAA and dashel in ours which I believe
are his own
children and this is one of those rare
images or photographs in the novel um
and it stands out because there's only
three times and this is the I think this
is the second one um and it's an image
of the innocent and the young rashu
rashu
um you know and uh this young boy that
uh art Spelman himself has competed with
it's um the ghost of a man that could
have been that um art has to compete
with every day for the rest of his life
um for some reason against this perfect
child who was never an adult and who who
won't be remember for the Tantrums and
um uh anything else wrong that he might
have ever done but only for this
beautiful young boy that he was what he
could have been um and despite the fact
that arfs he's been in competition with
him he has taken the time and and
dedicated this book to him uh you know
which shows his his
love and that in innocent image is then
contrasted with uh this one in our book
we have a a second image up here on page
166 which is an overview of ast's camp
and then um inside of it it's got an
inset of the Catskills
Mountains um and New York showing the
journey between
um that art has to take to see vladic
who is um who is staying out of New York
City and he has to go and visit him um
but we've got this image here um he said
that and here where my troubles began
from asts to the cat skills and Beyond
so um playing on the word ashz but um
cat skills are the mountains but it's
also could be cat cats kill um and cats
as in cats have lots of
skills uh there are a few different
ideas there that you could um have a
think about why um he's used that
particular particular wording and what
what it might mean
mean [Music]
[Music]
um and then we've got chapter one Mouse
schwitz and we've got them stripped of
their identities now they're um inside
the camp behind the bobbed wire they
lack their own identity they instead of
being um given a number a pair of
pajamas um that has a gold star on it
are all right um and the beginning of um
part two is um he's writing this after
the success of part one after it's been
published because original finally um
mouse or the complete Mouse um which is
Parts one and part two that's the final
product that's what we're seeing in our
novel but how it was published was
published as um a Serial which means in part
part
um uh in the magazine uh rule I think
over um many years and then finally was
put together in the book um and this is
written after the first part has been
published and has received kind of
critical Acclaim it's seem be very
popular and um Art's kind of later on
struggling to deal with that and he
doesn't know really um how to deal with
that and whether the attention he's
receiving um is he's worthy of it or
what he's contributed is valuable Etc
and it just shows you know um all his
insecurities in in dealing with that but
anyway getting back to this we've got um
a number of drawings of different
animals here and uh we see that um art
is trying to figure out how he should um
represent franois his wife who is French
and and the difficulty of representing a
race in this story and this is part of
the meta narrative this is him writing
the book and showing the struggle of
writing the book and trying to come up
with um characters or or um the
appropriate image of a character to suit
a race or a people
um within his story
and it shows him trying to mediate his
uh father's identity with his own
experience he's trying to figure out
where they fit in and who he is and um
he's asking friends well how should she
be drawn and
um she suggested you know a bunny rabbit
and they're debating and that's why
we've got these different drawings but
it's just the um the idea of
experimentation and trying to figure out
how the best way to present your story
and explore that story in the most
accurate way
possible all right and then we moving on
here and he says um you know you should
have married what's her name well no
sorry this is fris saying this you
should have married what's her name the
girl you were seeing when we first met
Sandra yes then you could have just
drawn mice no problem so she's getting
cranky at him because he's saying that
she needs to draw her differently he
needs to draw her differently but he
doesn't know how to he says come on I
just dated her to get over my prejudice
against middle class New York Jewish
women so even Jews can show Prejudice
themselves they're not immune from from
being prejudiced against other people so
they he um you know that isn't that
doesn't make him racist but he's showing
some form of prejudice towards Women
Within his um Social
Circles um and then we've got um hurry
your father just phoned he's had a heart
attack or what oh no um he left this
number to call we just saw him last week
on the way out the Bungalow um we
stopped at the cat skills he looked fine
him and they decide they've got to go visit
visit
him um what a pity you just got up here
um so they've had to leave where they
were which was on holiday with their
friends and they've had to go to the cat
skills where um vladic is to help him
because he's
unwell um and this is um this physical
journey in the car
um is part of the mer meta narrative
he's um really reflecting on what it's
like to write and whether what he's
doing is the right thing and if he can
even if he is allowed to make a
contribution to um the
Holocaust um literature which means what
that means is all the books that tell a
story about the Holocaust everything um
from night to the museum that we visited
on Camp to the Holocaust Museum in the
United States um to all the other
written Tales of um survivors and
historical narratives Etc um is his um
graphic novel contribution um valuable
has he added to it enhanced you know
he's constantly battling with this question
question
himself and he says here um depressed
again and he goes just thinking about my
book it's so presumptuous of me and this
emphasis on this word b in bold I mean I
can't even make any sense out of my
relationship with my father how am I
supposed to make any sense of out of
ashz of the Holocaust so even though
he's trying to do that with his book he
thinks like gosh I'm an idiot like why
would I think that I could make sense of
it um I'm just trying to Grapple with it
with this book but why did I think that
I could make sense of it and he said
when I was a kid I used to think about
which of my parents I'd let the Nazis
take to the ovens if I could only save
one of them usually I save my mother do
you think that's normal and she said
nobody's normal and so this idea of
um uh normality is a question that he's
always um wondering about and constantly
coming back to and he says I wonder if
Ru and I would get along if he was still
alive he says your brother my ghost
Brother since he got killed before I was
born he was only five or
six after the war my parents traced down
the vaguest rumors and went to the
orphanages all over Europe they couldn't
believe he was dead I don't think about
him much when I was I didn't think about
him much when I was growing up he was
mainly a large blurry photograph hanging
in my parents
bedroom uh uh I thought that was a
picture of you though it didn't look
like you that's the point they didn't
need photos of me in their room I was
alive the photo never threw Tantrums or
got in any kind of trouble it was an
ideal kid and I was a pain in the ass I
couldn't compete and again we've got
this idea of a competition he's in
competition with his dead brother he's
in competition with his father and the
pain that he can feel and he says they
didn't talk about rishu but that photo
was kind of reproach was a kind of
reproach he'd have become a doctor and
married a wealthy Jewish girl the creep
but at least we could have made him go
deal with flat it's spooky having
sibling rivalry with a snapshot and
that's a very um relevant quote I think
to a number of questions so I'd
definitely be making note of this
passage and it's part of a meta
narrative reflecting on the experience
of writing and what and what um trying
to retell this Holocaust story has has
um um revealed for him
and yeah it's sad though he is in
competition with the photo but that's
how he
feels and then we've got this touching
on this idea of guilt here I never felt
guilty about rashu but I did have
nightmares about SS men coming into my
class and dragging all us Jewish kids
away don't get me wrong I wasn't
obsessed with this stuff just that
sometimes I'd fantasize cyclum be coming
out of our shower instead of water so
you can see that he's been deeply
traumatized by this experience even
though he says don't get me wrong I
wasn't obsessed um the fact that that's
a concern that he had or even a
nightmare that he had
um tells us maybe that he knew too much
um and that he wasn't helped in how to
deal with
that I know this isn't same but I
somehow wish I had been in asts with my
parents so I could really know what they
lived through I guess it's some kind of
guilt about having had an easier life
than they
did you know and is it fair that he
thinks that he should have to feel
um have experienced that sorry to
understand them and what they went
through um it's quite this is quite sad
and just kind of an interesting point
that I think you need to spend a little
bit of time thinking about this spread
and and what he's trying to say and what
he's trying to Grapple with I guess it's
some kind of guilt about having had an
easier life than them and this I wish I
had been in Ash with with my parents you
know really really have a think about
that why does he wish that what does he
um does he really want to understand or
does he want this just to be an
authentic text I'm not
sure I feel so inadequate trying to
reconstruct reality that was worse than
my darkest dreams and this is feeding
into I think his own you know
self-esteem issues and um his struggle
to um feel like the contribution he's
making is worthwhile and whether he's in
fact a valid person to make a
contribution to this literature this
Narrative of the Holocaust um you know
and trying to do it as a comic strip I
guess I bit off more than I can chew
maybe I ought to forget the whole thing
and he says there's so much I'll never
be able to understand or visualize I
mean reality is too complex for Comics
which this is a good one here a very
good quote so much has to be left out or
disted Ed and she says just keep it
honest honey but you could also the
counter argument to that is that so much
can be conveyed in images that cannot be
um conveyed in words and his drawings
were able to do that so um this quote
here in this spread would come about if
you're talking about um how does the
graphic novel um structure add to the um
the Holocaust narrative or literature
and whether it's a valid um way
to uh write about and EXP for the
Holocaust experience if the graphic
novel is is worthy um and I think it is
and but that's up to you what you think
but you need to justify what you think
why you think and you need to have some
evidence from the text to show the
debate that's going on for um
Ry as to whether or not what he's doing
is is valid all right and
then he arrives at the cat skills and he
goes you see how it is now Arty she took
my money and she ran away or
how could you do it leave me such a sick
man like me alone so Mara has abandoned
him and has taken his money
seemingly um I haven't read enough about
this to know any more than that so we'll
just leave that one there it says look
how nice I made for you a bed for the
whole summer you can be comfortable here
hey we're just staying for a few days PO
he needs to remind him that
um they they're not there for Long Haul
while and this here um I just want to
take it a step back for a moment this is
what's called um breaking the fourth
wall which means it's stepping out again
it's another level and this
um this dialogue that they've had did
this really ever happen no I don't think
so because what he says is see what I
mean in real life you'd never have let
me talk this long without interrupting
he couldn't have had this whole dialogue
with her without her
talking um he's just had to make it up
to kind of show um his own uh internal
mental struggle with this writing and um
drawing and and
um and how he's trying to communicate
his father's story um so that's what's
called breaking the fourth wall you
could talk about that and if you want to
learn a bit more about that just Google
that all
right and then we'll skip a couple
couple of pages forward
forward
um and we've got the kind of frustration
and anger of Vlad here who is
um upset and angry about Mara leaving
him and he's saying but this she can't
do she needs my signature AI what do you
do H I'm just lighting my cigarette and
he's you know this shows his confusion
you know you've got the idea of the
jewel head there [Music]
[Music]
um down here only to light the oven I
use them these wood matches I have to
buy the paper matches I can have free
from the lobby of the Pines hotel and
this is
again him always trying to save a buck
and um avoid spending it where he can
and conserve his funds for a rainy day
which um seemingly will never occur and
he's going to have to leave the money
behind when he passes but he's always
saving just in case it's like he's
afraid always that the Holocaust might
be around the corner at any moment and
um he needs to be as resourceful as he
can in order to protect himself and his
family um but that that um incident this
moment with the um matches is um one
point you need to probably annotate here
and make sure that you're aware of as
the characterization of who um vladic is
why he is and what he believes about
could possibly happen in into him um you
know that this could the Holocaust could
could happen again so he needs to
continue to be resourceful and Frugal
and and save and save and safe um and
then at the bottom of the neck spread
and it says um a nurse it costs money
you think your father spends money so
easy poor Mara one time I went to the
supermarket with her she had to erase a
hairbrush from the bill because he
wouldn't pay for her personal items How
could a couple live like that and so I
just had to I've just got a scky note
there about like the family relationship
the fractured relationship that's going
on um and how difficult um of how
difficult vladic is as a person
person
and um
how we need to be um sympathetic maybe
to some of the other characters in the
novel because of the way that he
is um but also realized that Art's
writing from his own perspective and um
and he hasn't had the most positive
relationship with his father and that
possibly colors the way that he presents
him in this in this
novel all right and then we've got here
here um
um
Vlad is kind of hijacking the moment
with a bit of a guilt trip about what
do and he says maybe but lots of the
people are P survivors like those
um cups if they've if they're whacked up
it's in a different way from vadex it
was saying that um everybody is has
their struggles that they deal with
after the Holocaust but Vlad is a
special case and he thinks he's kind of
more extreme than anybody else and his
story suggests maybe that's true but
um who knows um it hits just one story
and we must always remember that it's
not what everybody would be like but um
is one story of of a
Survivor and he says God if it wasn't so
pathetic it would be kind of
funny and um and that is she's talking
about the fact that since gas is
included in their rent he leaves a burn
a little um all day to save on matches
which in fact the matches are so much
cheaper than um the gas but he just
doesn't have to pay for that as part of
his rent so he thinks it's okay to waste
it so it's an interesting um Dynamic and
they're saying you know it's pathetic
it's also sad and uh unnerving and a bit
um upsetting maybe for them so and then
we've got the narration after a few a
few tents hours later and we've got
again vadic is blaming art for the
problems he's having you did this it's
your fault that I've done this
um and um him getting angry and calling
him lazy
and every job we should make so as to do
it right away and
um you know he just constantly puts him
down and makes him feel um belittled and
worthless because um he's not living up
to this kind of ridiculous standard that
Vlad sets for
him which is unfair and explains
probably why the two of them are the way
they are all right and now this is Page
184 in your novel
got this moment down here and it's kind
of a little moment where vladic
tries to
be well tries to reach out to his son and
and
um uh bridge that Gap and and bring them
back together again but um AI shuts him
down and pushes him
away because he's frustrated and angry
at him and
so um refuses to kind of um forgive him
and let him in and then um Because
unless it's about the book or the story
he doesn't really want to hear about it
he um just makes him go back to it he
says well what happened when you and Mom
arrived there and we separated so we
step back we see the change in panel
back into the other
story and then back out again but you
need to understand never Anya and I were
separated no and we going back and
forward between these panels
here and they were together even when
they weren't
um together showing kind of the strength
and bond of their relationship um and
that when um they were what's the word he
uses says something like um never we were
were
separated but the war put us apart so
they were um forcibly taken apart they
had no choice in the matter they were um
simply had to do what they did because
they were made to by these kind of
vicious guards and
men and shut up yids which is an
offensive term for Jews
Jews
and it's
also um very
simple uh but when it says shut up Ys to
the bath house
quick it's um showing the very potential
danger of that moment and what could
have been
the crematorium which other people
thought was the bath house when they
were going
in all right then we've got this I think
is it's a particularly powerful panel if
you just take the time to have a look at
these images um you've got them running
after their showers um they're dressed
in pajamas the brutality of the guards
and these are the poles treating them
that way they're stripping them of their
identity even further they no longer
have their clothes none of their
belongings and their identity is taken
away and they are given instead of a
number they register us and they took
from us our names and here they put me my
my
number we've got the overlay of that and his
his
interjection um of present day over the
top of the the the historical
narrative um points to the significance
of that moment um and the power of of
what it means when you take away who a
person is and you strip them of
everything they are and instead Define
them as a number you make them less
human you make them verman so you've got him
him
um with human
face
got all around was a smell so terrible I
can't explain Swedish so like rubber
burning and fat and that's the body's
burning in the crematorium for those who
who might have missed that one um
um
and you know that
smell um the smoke permeates Camp life
it always hangs over them it's something
they can never escape and you see that
down here in that image like it's kind
of an omnipresent
omnipresent
smoke um and he's talking about the fact
that uh Abraham
who was the nephew of mandom um I didn't
chimney and he says the Germans didn't
need them so they finished also in
ashwoods and so he's talking about the
um betrayed him I think and I think they
didn't even mean it oh they didn't
realize that they had betrayed him
because uh they didn't know that the
gods who were trying to move them this
is when they're being smuggled back
earlier and we had the train station
image when they're being smuggled that
um the Smugglers could speak Yiddish so
they knew what the um Jews were saying
to each other and manipulated them
accordingly all right we've got the
closeup here of the um of his number and
it says it ends with 13 the age a Jewish
boy becomes a man and look added
together the totals of 18 that's chai
the Hebrew the Hebrew number of life and
so he sees this kind of as symbol for
hope and we see that despite the kind of
awful situation that he is that he's
looking for a moment um of Hope and
potential and possibility and you see
that his change of face and
demeanor as he starts to um kind of feel
rejuvenated or um reinvigorated by this
this hope for what could
be and then we move on we've got this
larger panel and this is a rare um I
don't recall seeing any other panel kind
of drawn in a similar light but now it
was ast's mandal bomb was a mess and he
used to be this wealthy man and now
you've got these little um parts of text
here narrating how he's being kind of
desecrated from the person that he was
and he's become this um prisoner with no
shoe pants too big he always such to
walk around holding on to it so have a
little read of that and have a look
about how um think about how people
didn't matter who you were um as a Jew
the wealthiest to the very poorest you
know could be undone by the Nazis and
you were used to um to nothing but we
see that um vladic this is one person
that um he who exists kind of before for
him and and he helps him and looks after
him um not necessarily in that moment
return and he says you know he needs a
spoon and he needs a belt and all sorts
of other things so when um
vladic is um saved by one of the guards
a little bit later on because he knows
the language and he's able to teach um
him as requested he then takes some of
the goods that he obtains and he shares
them with a mandal bomb and helps him to
survive for some part he says he was so
happy with this and the Capo knew mandal
bum was my friend so left him alone how
long I could I kept him but a few days
later the Germans chose him to take away
to work nobody could help this so it was
finished with mandal bum I never saw him
more again and you know the finality of
that moment and kind of the simplistic
nature of that um narration or that text
um shows how easily Bonds were broken
and lost in in the Holocaust you just
had to move on that's all that you could
what's keep going
down I'm just looking through my book I
think I've skipped a few pages
pages
y got the racism here you je you've only
been here a few days and you're ready to
do business um this reputation that the
Jews have have always is being kind of
out to get their
own and um this carries on and he says
um they wanted only to finish everyone
out it was very hard work and very
little food maybe they kicked and hit
him and he's talking about mandal bum
who he was taken away to work because he
couldn't work fast enough or maybe he
got sick so they put him first in the
hospital and then in the oven you see
how they did and I had it still happy there
there
was happy there for me it was not yet the
the end
end
um and he kind of makes up a story for
how he thinks manal bomb's life might
have ended suggesting all these
alternative but basically it touches on
all the ways in which the Nazis um
destroyed the lives of the Jews and and
systematically took took them apart with
things like throwing their hat and
telling him to go and fetch it or um
just inhumanity of these other things by
not feeding them so starving them to
death um them um going to hospital and
becoming very ill and obviously being of
no use then as workers so being sent to the
ovens and then again you've got vladic
being cheap here and it's a bit of a
characterization of who he
is and that's how the
um chapter ends on that and there's this
one kind of odd moment where he's kind
to another lady that's playing Bingo and
he gives her um his card and it's kind
of one little moment of kindness that he
shows in an
otherwise present day
um uh story in which he he is not a very
kind person um to the people around him
especially the people that love him um
all right I'm going to leave it off
there the next one is Ash witz time
flies but I'm not going to
do that one for the moment so check back
in then later in January and I'll have
done one then all right happy listening
keep annotating
yourselves and I'll see you back at school
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