The story Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel about Spiegelman retrieving information from his father about the Holocaust and his father's experience of living through Germany's rein of terror. Spiegelman writes this graphic novel using flashbacks as his father tells the story, and using the present time to illustrate their interaction while his father recounts the atrocities he has seen. Spiegelman's father, Vladek, begins the story about him growing up in Poland and meeting his wife, Anja, and her wealthy family. World War II begins and Vladek is sent to defend the Polish border by the Poland government. He is then captured by the Germans after they breach the Polish border and sent to a POW (prisoner of war) camp. He is released from the camp, but not too long after his release all the Jews left in Poland are round up by the Germans and the Nazi party and sent to work camps. They separated the Jews based upon their skill sets, wealth, age, health, and gender. They were sent to separate work camps. During this process he lost his wife and kids. Vladek managed to escape and hide and wait for help. Anja remained in the work camp until the western front is taken by the allied soldiers and eventually reunites with her husband and their second son in America. Their first son was poisoned by his aunt who then committed suicide all because the Germans were converging on their hideout and would find and kill them (Spiegelman 136). Overall, Spiegelman highlights the story of a survivor of the Holocaust and how its effects continue to linger and affect people today through the use of the graphic novel format, the use of specific shapes, and the portrayal of certain characters in the illustration piece.

The graphic novel, Maus, highlights how the lingering effects of the Holocaust affected people directly after the war and still affect them today. For example, Anja, Spiegelman's mother, killed herself some years after the war due to Vladek always being angry and annoyed at everyone because he was feeling survivor's guilt and post traumatic stress syndrome. And Spiegelman now has some anger directed at his father for treating his mother so poorly after the war. He blames him a little bit for her death. She was affected by survivor's guilt and post traumatic stress syndrome as well, but the addition of the always angry husband did not help her get better. Another example of how the graphic novel illustrates the effects of the Holocaust on the people who experienced it is Spiegelman's step mother. Vladek did not learn from his first wife how to deal with the affects of the Holocaust and he is treating his second wife, Mala, with the similar aspects he treated his first wife with proving that just because the Holocaust was over decades ago he still feels its effects. Mala went through the Holocaust as well, so she understands but still gets fed up with his anger and issues. "He drives me crazy! He won't even let me throw out the plastic pitcher he from his hospital room last year!" (Spiegelman 141) This is Mala venting to Spiegelman after his father gets too tired and has to take a break from explaining his story of surviving the Holocaust. "He's more attached to things then people!" (Spiegelman 141) His wife is explaining that he cares more about his things because he thinks everyone he gets attached to he loses. For example, his first wife killed herself, his first son was poisoned, his family was killed by the Nazis, and his first wife's family was also killed by the Nazis. He finds it safer to become attached to things then people. This is understandable due to what he has been through, but it is no way to treat Mala or his second son, Spiegelman. Maus illustrates perfectly how the Holocaust has affected people in a negative way now and continuing on to present time.

Furthermore, the art aspect of this graphic novel is telling as well. The illustrator creates the Jews to look like mice, and the Nazis to look like cats. This creates the idea that mice or the Jews are the creature everyone hated and wanted to out of their lives. The cats or the Nazis are the way people plan to fix the mice problem in Germany. This imagery plays in to the idea that Germany was plagued by the idea that all their problems was the Jews fault and they were to be punished, so they set the mouse traps or catchers to find them, round them up, and overall get rid of them. Spiegelman, as a Jew, uses this as irony not to promote the idea that Jews are the problem and need to be gone. These illustrations say a great deal about the story and have great meaning to the plot and overall meaning and moral message of the graphic novel by Spiegelman.

In conclusion, the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman is a great recollection of memories from a Holocaust survivor and his experience and the experience of the acquisition of those memories. It highlights how serious the role of fear played in to Nazi Germany, and how people were brainwashed with the idea of prosperity or overcome with fear to the point where very few people tried to stand up and speak out against the atrocities of the Holocaust and the plan to exterminate the world from the Jewish disease. Overall, Spiegelman uses the graphic novel to show how the idea of the Jewish people being mice or rats and the thought in Germany at the time was they needed to be caught and exterminated. He also showed how the effects of the Holocaust still last among the survivors today through the actions of Vladek and Mala.

