Maus

This week I finished reading both parts of the book "Maus". The graphic novel was definitely an eye-opener for me. Reading it really made me realize how traumatic it must've been for survivors to tell their stories and how no one will ever truly understand what they felt like other than the survivors themselves. As I read the book, I understood that the book was so much more than just a comic, it was a narrative of a person during and their life during, before, and after the Holocaust. One of the things I really liked about the story is the juxtaposition of cats as Germans and the mice as Jews and the euphemistic approach attached to it. But after understanding why Art Spiegelman chose to use cats and mice as an extended metaphor it made me sympathize so much more for those who survived and to what extent they had to go to survive. Spiegelman shows the absurdity and brutality of the Holocaust by portraying people as animals. And after analyzing the book in class and how Vladek acts after the holocaust it really enforces the ways in which individuals cope with trauma, develop empathy, and bear witness to history.