Holocaust Effects

When someone suffers a terrible pain, a horrific and gruesome torture, we cannot help but feel extreme pity for that person; it's human nature to feel compassion for those less fortunate than us. But how must it feel when that person is your father, when you look up to a man who survived one of the most significant times in human history. How do you live in his shadow of pity and sorrow, without constantly feeling his pain while around him and experiencing that horror with him? One of the most engaging things about the book Maus by Art Spiegelman is not only the first hand account of the Concentration Camps and the Holocaust, but also being able to see what affects the Concentration Camps had on those who survived them. In what ways it had affected their brain, how they interact with people almost 40 years after this disastrous event. Do they live in constant fear, are they capable of relaxing, and how are they treated by others in modern-day society if they are pegged as "survivors." Although Art Spiegelman did a truly fantastic job portraying the Concentration Camps through the realism of comics, its is the after effect of the Nazi Regime that interests me most.

Spiegelman depicts his father as and elderly, Jewish-Polish mouse that lives in Rego Park, N.Y. Vladek is bitter, anxious, and incredibly stubborn. The question is, are these personality traits that were in existence before Vladek's journey through the Concentration Camps, or are they traits that developed during his traumatic experiences? Or were they only half present before Vladek went through the Concentration Camps, yet his exposure to the Holocaust strengthened them. Despite the fact that some aspects of his personality are unfavorable, his awareness of what's occurring around him and his unbelievable resourcefulness are truly what made him survive in the Concentration Camps, along with luck.

The part that would be confusing for a child, or even an adult, for that matter, would be how to deal with a father such as Vladek. While you feel pity and compassion for him, his behavior and attitude around others is repelling. The problem with his off-putting behavior is that it's hard to tell if it's just an affect of the Concentration Camp and the traumas it held. Should Speigelamn pity his father, and what could be a serious affect of the physical and mental distresses in the Concentration Camp? Or should Speigelman be mad at his father, for being a stubborn and bitter reminder of all that happened 40 years prior?