maus 3

Albert Rayle
Ms. Hara
Maus reading response 3
11/05/07

This last reading assignment could be the worst one that we have had to read yet. Vladek is now in Auschwitz and is struggling every day just to find enough food to survive. Also on top of the written images that are being placed in my head I am forced to see Artie’s drawings of the terrible things that happened. It just seems so unbelievable that something like this was happening and it took us so long to stop it. I would imagine that everyone in the world would be against Hitler and his army, and all the countries would unite to bring him down. Instead he somehow had a huge following and had very strong alliances.
I found it very interesting how Vladek was able to stay alive in Auschwitz. I always assumed that they people who survived Auschwitz were the ones that knew had to hide in the numbers and avoid all of the lineups and gas chambers. Vladek did the opposite, he would make friend with his kapo and his job site supervisors. Vladek realized that he could never survive on his own with the small amounts of food he was given so he branched out and tried to make “friends”. I say “friends” because no one really cared about each other during this time. All anyone cared about was saving themselves and their love ones. Also to get these people to like Vladek he always had to do something for them. For his kapo Vladek had to teach him to speak English and in returned the kapo saved him from going to the gas chambers by telling him which side of the line to stand. Vladek also bribed Anja’s kapo by fixing her boots and making them look like they were new.
Vladek used all of his intelligence and skill to survive the camp. He knew that skilled workers would be kept around longer so he always did what ever he could to get a job. Since he was in hiding for so long and always was pretending to do different jobs he learned little bits and pieces of trade skills that he was then later able to use in the camps. Vladek would always pretend to know what he was doing and then go and learn how to do it in order to keep his job. When Vladek was being a shoe smith in the concentration camp he knew how to do basic repairs but then one day a guard came in and told him to fix a bad tear and make the boot look brand new. The guard said that he would kill him if it wasn’t a good repair. Vladek rushed back to the barracks and got someone to fix it and make it look perfect. In doing so he had to give up a day’s supply of bread because that was how things worked there, nothing was free. The guard thought that Vladek did a great job and actually gave him a whole sausage link, so in the end it worked out better for him. Vladek seemed to always get a little lucky like this. He sacrificed his day’s worth of sawdust filled bread but in the end he got some desperately needed protein.
These last two chapters were very sad and interesting at the same time. It is sad to think about all of the trouble that everyone went through but it is interesting to learn about. Art seemed to have a lot of trouble starting up the second book because he tells us that he is seeing a shrink and his drawing actually show him as a human with a mouse mask on. I am fairly certain that this is the first time that he has done this in his series so far. Maybe he is trying to tell us that he is worn out being in the past world that he is describing.