Maus and Me

 Maus and Me

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about Art Spiegelman’s book Maus recently.  His graphic memoir about the Holocaust was banned in Tennessee, and as a result, many of my Polish and Polish American friends on social media have been talking about it.

I’ve been a fan of Spiegelman’s Maus for a long time.  I first read this memoir about his father and his experiences in the Holocaust in 1990.  

My  connection with the book was almost instantaneous. Spiegelman and I shared so much. We both loved comic books for one thing. My great dream growing up was to write and draw comic books.  The dream never came true for me, but it became true for Spiegelman.  His graphic novel (i.e.  comic book) was the only one to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.  Another thing that connected us was that we both had Polish parents who were victims of the Germans.  My Catholic parents were sent to concentration and slave labor camps in Germany.  His Jewish parents went to Auschwitz. They all survived the war.  Finally, Art Spiegelman and I both wrote about our parents and the horrors they went through.  He wrote Maus and I wrote Echoes of Tattered Tongues: Memory Unfolded. Like I said, I like Maus very much, and when I was still teaching I used to teach the book as often as I could.  

The Tennessee ban on Spiegelman’s book is pretty ridiculous.  The school board banned it – not for it’s portrayal of the Holocaust – but for its use of curse words and some nudity. 

What surprised me more was the reaction on social media.  Many Poles and Polish Americans attacked Maus for what they felt was its negative portrayal of Poles during World War II and the Holocaust. In the book people of different nationalities are seen as different animals.  Jews are mice, Poles are depicted as pigs, Germans as cats, etc.   That Poles are pigs is offensive to some readers, but the biggest complaint I hear is that the Poles are depicted as bad.

Are there negative portrayals of Poles in Spiegelman’s Maus?  Yes, there are.  For example, some Poles prisoners are seen assisting the Germans in Auschwitz, some Poles are seen betraying Jews, and some Poles are said to have killed Jews during the war.  

Is the portrayal of Poles entirely negative?  No.  Poles are also seen warning Jews that Germans are coming, Poles are seen being threatened by the Germans, Poles are seen treating Jews they know like family.  

What finally are we to make of this?

For me, it seems clear.  War and its chaos and infinite deaths creates a situation like nothing we have ever imagined.  Some of us – whether Polish or Jewish or German – turn against others, and some of us don’t.  

My mother spent 3 years in a slave labor camp.  She survived because one of the Germans guards at the camp took pity on her.  My mother used to say there were good Germans and bad Germans, and she forgave the good ones.  

For me, this is one of the lessons of Spiegelman’s Maus.  Forgive the good people.

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My latest column for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy,  the oldest Polish newspaper in America.