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I've been wanting to read this one, seen many great reviews about it. Thanks for sharing your story Arnie, I imagine that must have been a very difficult situation. Ill try to look for this Mausterpiece. :)

The Maus books are truly unlike anything I've ever read. I agree, they are masterpieces. What I wonder is how they ever came to be? What would be the motivation for the original idea? Did putting it in comic form help to ease the pain of the telling? Anyone ever read anything about this? I'll look for an interview with Art Spiegelman.

OK....Just looked up his book called, Metamaus which discusses how he came to write these. Of course I had to order it. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Art Spiegelman was a cartoonist/graphic artist for years before he wrote Maus so he was writing in his natural medium. After 9/11 he drew many great covers for The New Yorker.

The Complete Maus was my first graphic novel and I found it to be an amazing, emotional read. I don't have the family relationship to the Holocaust that you do Arnie, but can only imagine how this must have hit home.

@ Arnie: I didn't think the Holocaust would lend itself for a cartoon, but if you say so. You as a Jew and son of Holocaust survivors would know better than I do.

Btw, I didn't know you were a Jew. I consider all Jews my special GR friends. Following me around on GR, you probably know by now that I am a declared pro-Semite. :-)

P.S. The book series just went on my GET FROM THE LIBRARY list.

Great wordplay Arnie and I couldn't agree more with your impression on this graphic novel, a shocking masterpiece executed with raw fineness and craftmanship.

@ Lilo, I consider myself a very Jewish atheist. You'll see that the Maus books are not mere cartoons but are a novel or memoir in graphic form. I did follow you around GR and your comments about Jewish/Holocaust related books are why I asked you to be my friend and I was happy when you accepted.

Arnie wrote: "@ Lilo, I consider myself a very Jewish atheist. You'll see that the Maus books are not mere cartoons but are a novel or memoir in graphic form. I did follow you around GR and your comments about J..."

Well, Arnie, I am very happy, too, to have you as a friend. I meanwhile have quite a number of Jewish GR friends and probably more of whom I don't know that they are Jews.

And welcome to the club of free-thinkers. You might want to read my (and other's) recent comments on the review of Shawn's "The Believing Brain". Here is the link:

/review/show...

Shawn has very interesting definitions of atheism and agnosticism, which I agree to, but most people (including me up until now) aren't aware of.

And I am looking forward to reading/viewing the "Maus" series.

Btw, I just started reading "The Guns of August" and learned from the foreword that the author, Barbara W. Tuchman (a very remarkable writer of quite a number of exceptional and thoroughly researched books) also was a Jew.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: Jews, in average, are more intelligent (and thus, more successful) than other nationalities and ethnic groups. And this is the main reason why they are hated by so many. Envy is a strong driving force.

There is this saying: "Intelligent women have millions of enemies -- all stupid men!" I think similar can be said about the Jews.

One sad example: When my mother (born 1907) was young, she played tennis. One brother-pair of ball boys, earning some money at the tennis court, were so utterly stupid that they were hardly usable for retrieving tennis balls. They soon became fervent followers of Hitler and made a fantastic career with the SS. Because they were relatives of our Nazi-landlady, we had the "pleasure" of having them around, every now and then. (The landlady had taken the yard/garden away from us, regardless of what it said in the lease. There was no way a non-Nazi would win a civil court case against a NSDAP-member.) On one of these occasions, these SS brothers bragged to my mother about having thrown Jewish children onto the pavement from 4th-floor windows, while the brothers had been stationed in Frankfurt. (My mother had excused herself and had fled into the house because she had to throw up. Showing her dismay and disgust would have, most likely, earned her a meeting with the Gestapo.)

Btw, the more active of these brothers, who had been working in Poland as a camp leader and had, later, been quite often "volunteering" in Dachau (whatever that meant), is said to have committed suicide in April 1945. My personal belief is that he escaped to South America. (A Polish court was looking for him until the mid 1990s, by what time he was assumed dead.) -- His not quite so active brother came away unscathed. He owned and operated one of Munich's most favored coffee houses and died at a ripe old age. (I only found this out in July 2013, when I did some research for my early-childhood memoir, which is still not published because of ongoing real-life troubles, amongst them wildfire and flash flood.)

The story about this pair of SS brothers shows what kind of people considered themselves members of the "master race" and superior to Jews.

@Maria. It seemed difficult when I was growing up but lots of people had it much worse. In fact, I think I led a pampered existence especially when compared to my parents. I hope you find the book - I think you'll be glad you read it.
@Sue When they first studied the children I was distressed to find out I was a stereotype. Spiegelman's book really hit home. I'm glad you experienced it on such a deep level.
@Dolors I'm glad you had the same reaction I did. Thanks for the compliment - it means a lot coming from someone who writes as well as you.

It's hard to even fathom what your father must have gone through, Arnie. And it means a lot to hear you say that Spiegelman got the father/son dynamic just right.

The history and meaning you've explored in such a succinct review. I knew you were from Queens, Arnie (I remember us discussing Queens/Forest Hills in a comment thread), but I had no idea your parents were Holocaust survivors. Thanks for giving us a piece of your history:)

Lilo,
Believe me I've met plenty of stupid Jewish people. There are many kinds of intelligence and I'm not sure that any of them can be accurately measured. Thinking that one cultural, racial or religious group is superior to others can, and has, led to things like slavery and genocide and groups like the Nazis and ISIS. I appreciate your thoughtful response and your heart being in the right place.

@Steve there's something about the father son dynamic and something unique about the relationships between male survivors and their sons. At the time my father died (1989 - a few years after Maus was written) very few male survivors talked about their experience. It was much more common with female survivors. At least that was my experience and I knew dozens of survivors. Only one male I knew talked about the war back then. Although as time has passed and the importance of leaving a record has been emphasized it's become more common. My father never talked about his experience during the war. Even my mother knew very little about it. I was just happy we repaired our relationship before he died. The only time I saw him truly relaxed was when he was with my daughter. He died when she was two.

Cheryl, always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you for reading the review and the complimentary comment. Much appreciated.

@ Arnie: All nations and ethnic groups have intelligent and stupid people. I was talking about the average. And there -- I still insist :-) -- Jewish people excel.

I absolutely agree. There are many kinds of intelligence, and they cannot be accurately measured. And I also agree that it is somewhat dangerous to consider one cultural, racial or religious group superior to others.

However, different nationalities, races, and ethnic groups tend to have certain traits (good and bad) more than others. This, of course, doesn't mean that every person of this group has this trait. And it is certainly wrong to say that ALL Jews or ALL Germans are such-and-such.

For instance: You will find a high percentage of Germans who will blindly follow orders. (Count me out. :-)) You will find a lower percentage of Italians who will blindly follow orders. Etc., etc., ... And here, again, I say that you will find a high percentage of Jews with outstanding intelligence. You will have a hard time to find another nationality, race, or ethnic group that has an equally high percentage of people with outstanding intelligence.

And since Germans are boneheaded, dogmatic, and obstinate, you can't talk me out of it. :-)

Seriously, I am convinced that Jews, in general, are a very fine people, and not only because of their intelligence. Yet I won't tell you that I also consider them of remarkably good character, for members of the species homo sapiens, that is (in general, of course -- every nation/race/group has its serial killers), for I don't want to make you blush.

Because I have this high regard for Jews, in general, I am even so much more mad that Hitler and his swines (I apologize to the pork family) had the nerve to depict Jews as inferior. It would not be nice to discriminate a people that really were inferior to others, in average, but it is so much more outrageous to discriminate such a fine people. And here I am not even talking about persecution and genocide, which is inexcusable in any case.

Whenever I come across anti-Semitism, you'll see me storm the barricades.

Arnie, I am a few days late to comment, but I am touched by your memories associated with this masterpiece. Now, I know I must read it. Thank you, my friend.

Is Maus a masterpiece? Most assuredly. I have found that even as it portrays so much of the reality of the Holocaust, it is still, because of the format, an excellent way to introduce the subject to younger readers. All 6 of my grandchildren read this by the time they were 12.
As far as making generalizations about one ethnic group over another...I try to resist making those statements or even thinking them, so dangerous is it to go down that road.
I am a blond, blue-eyed gentile raised in the mayonnaise and white bread suburbs. For some reason, at 12, I began to read about the Holocaust and the history of the Jews and have never stopped. I married a non-religious Jew and was lucky enough to be immersed into his family. I can assure you, because of the way I look I was privy to many occasions and comments by viciously anti-Semitic people who assumed they were in "safe" company.
Passing down this history as important as the current news of genocide going on. That's one of the reasons this group is so valuable to me.
Today I hear and read the loud rumblings of re-emerging anti-Semitism and blame. Registering Jewish property, desecration of graves and synagogs and the growing whispers of anti-Isreal politics. None of this is a surprise to Jews. But how do we breach the widening gap between Christians and Jew? We are again separate.

@ Cameron:

I agree. It IS somewhat dangerous to to make any generalizing statements about ethnic groups, especially when these statements fall on ears of stupid people who are unable to differentiate between ALL Jews or Germans or ... and a high percentage of Jews or Germans or ...

Yet, let's face it, most everybody does it, if not in the open, so behind closed doors, or only in one's mind.

Nationalities, races, ethnic groups, etc. are not all the same. There ARE differences. But I agree, to point them out, is dangerous because it can easily lead to discrimination.

Still, I have a very high regard and special love for Jewish people, in general, and for some individuals I know, in particular. I hope you'll forgive me. :-)

How do we breach the gap between Christians and Jews? I don't think it is possible. I find most practicing Christians so brainwashed into viewing Jews as the murderers of Jesus that they are beyond help. Brainwash goes a long way.

The nuns who ran the elementary school of my hometown did a "good job" with hammering it into small children that Jews were the cruel "murderers" of the Son of God. Besides, they made it sound as if Jesus's crucification had been the only killing of an innocent person in all of history. Having seen an illustrated history book (owned by my adoptive grandmother), showing "witches" and "heretics" burned on the stake, I didn't buy these nuns' brainwash. I felt sorry for Jesus as I would feel sorry for any innocent killed (be it a human or an animal), but I realized that these were different times with different laws, and I could not understand for the life of me why a whole people would be blamed for an execution (be it rightful or wrongful), 2000 years after it had happened. If this was right, then there would be so much more reason to blame all living Spanish people (and French, and German, etc., etc.) for the inquisition that cruelly killed more than one innocent person.

Lilo, talking about swine, in the Maus books the Germans are drawn as cats, the Jews are drawn as mice, and the Poles are drawn as pigs. I did not comment on that because I thought it, and the reasons for those portrayals, are super obvious.

Thanks for talking about your personal reaction to Maus in your review and in the comments. For what it's worth, I knew a Polish Holocaust survivor who used to come and talk to my classes, Leo, who also had a troubled relationship with his older son. Leo's wife Rose, however, was a survivor of Bergen-Belsen and a couple of other camps who never spoke about her experiences until after Leo passed away. I think she had reached a different understanding of it all and didn't feel as if he'd agree with her perspective, so she just kept quiet while he talked.

Cameron, I had my daughter wait until she was in High School (maybe late intermediate school who remembers) to read the Maus books because I respect it (I consider the Maus books to be a unified work) so much as a work of art. When she was ten I gave her The Devil's Arithmetic to read and she went on to read all the young adult literature related to the Holocaust that she could find. She is also a blue eyed blonde who inherited my nose and does not look Jewish.

Lilo when I was young the juvenile delinquents in the area called me "the baddest of the Jews" and it was my task to fight the leader of, and biggest of a particular group of Catholic school kids. I remember them beating up a Puerto Rican friend who hung out with us. I don't know if it's the town or area I live in but when my daughter was growing up people of different races, different cultures, religions and sexual orientation were all accepted and treated the same. There is hope.

Steve read the books (or The Complete Maus) together as they are really one work). I'm pretty confident you'll like it and write a better, and more complete, review than I did.

Lisa, I already knew you were much younger than me. My mother goes to churches, schools and has also spoken at The Museum of Jewish Cultural Heritage (which is more of a historical than cultural museum although it incorporates both). When I was a kid that type of thing was unheard of and she would not have been strong enough.

Arnie wrote: "Lilo when I was young the juvenile delinquents in the area called me "the baddest of the Jews" and it was my task to fight the leader of, and biggest of a particular group of Catholic school kids. ..."

How "Christian" of these Catholic school kids to insult and beat up other kids! I keep getting puzzled about how Christians combine their actions (from the inquisition to the Holocaust to mere insulting and beating up of kids who don't belong to their gang) with what Jesus, whoever he was, was preaching.

I am glad your daughter had no trouble in school. As to your hope, I can only say: Your words in God's ear! :-)

Arnie wrote: "Lilo, talking about swine, in the Maus books the Germans are drawn as cats, the Jews are drawn as mice, and the Poles are drawn as pigs. I did not comment on that because I thought it, and the reas..."

I may be slow on the uptake, but I haven't got a clue why Art Spiegelman chose to draw the Jews as mice, the Poles as pigs, and the Germans as cats. -- The latter bothers me. I love cats -- we have 31 of them -- and I don't like them insulted. Couldn't he have chosen crocodiles instead? And the Poles might not appreciate to be depicted as pigs. Mice, to me, are neutral when it comes to reputation.

Well, maybe I'll understand it when I get the books from the library tomorrow. I have already reserved them.

Lilo, read this excellent more complete review
/review/show...

Thank you, Arnie. I just went to this link and LIKEd and commented this review.

I tried to get "The Complete Maus" from our library, last August. Turned out they could not find the book. They promised to keep looking for it.

I was, then, out of town for almost six weeks and the following weeks in and out of ER, hospital, and doctor's office. (It was eventually established that the heart symptoms that had sent me to the ER were caused by a weird case of shingles.) With all these things going on, I did not recheck with the library.

The library called me last week. They had ordered the book in from another library. (Yet it turned out to be only book 1. So I'll have to see that I can get the library to order book 2 in, as well.) I started reading the book a few days ago and am almost finished now.

I am still without words. Will write a review when I finished reading and have recovered from the impact this book has on me.

I am so glad, you alerted me to this book, Arnie. Had it not been for you, I would have never considered reading a graphic book on the Holocaust.

For the time being, I can only endorse your wonderful review.

You ask, "When can we stop talking about the Holocaust? My answer is: NEVER EVER!

The Holocaust is probably the biggest and worst crime ever committed in history (at least, by a people that, so far, had not been considered savages). Everyone who treats the Holocaust a conversation tabu or demands to "let bygones be bygones" sets the seed for something similar to happen again.

Lilo, take care of your health. That's the main thing. If your library can't get it for you send me a personal message with your address and I'll have a copy sent to you.

Arnie wrote: "Lilo, take care of your health. That's the main thing. If your library can't get it for you send me a personal message with your address and I'll have a copy sent to you."

Thank you so much for your offer, Arnie. But it is not necessary. If the library can't get it, I'll buy it from Amazon. I am just trying to cut down on purchases, as we are drowning in books (and I am not too keen on reading e-books.) We have 16 bookcases, 50+ boxes with (mostly unread) books, and stacks of newly purchased books all over the house (not to speak of the 200+ books on my e-reader). Don't tell anyone, or I might get admitted to an institution. :-)

(I am not too concerned that my husband will have me admitted. He is a worse hoarder than I am. He hoards tools, machinery and scientific instruments. While my book collection is still (somewhat) manageable, my husband's collection of "treasures" is out of hand and can only be weighed in tons.)

I am, meanwhile, much better, but not yet fully recovered. My poor husband is terribly overworked. We have been battling a streak of Murphy's Law since May 2011. (Wildfire, flash floods, our 2nd home in Salt Lake City devastated by water damage, troubles with the insurance and a crooked contractor, destructive tenants, various health problems, sick cats, ... you name it, we had it.) Every time we think our life might go back to normal, a new emergency comes up or a new disaster happens. I am afraid we might be jinxed. :-)

Btw, I'll buy a few copies of "The Complete Maus" for Christmas presents.

P.S. I had to laugh (and cry) about Art Spiegelman's dad's habit to penny-pinch, pick up and keep trash (such as a piece of telephone wire he found on the street), and to be adamant about doing all kinds of repairs himself, even though he could afford to hire someone. -- My dear, sweet husband is the same way.

Whereas my husband and I -- thank God! -- have never had the experience of a concentration camp, we both grew up in Germany, during time of deprivation. (I am born Nov. 1939, my husband is born Jan. 1943.) Most Germans who experienced "the bad time", as Germans call it (meaning the Third Reich, WWII, and the deprived years after the war), have the tendency to hoard supplies. My mother was worst. She never threw anything away unless it stank. When we cleared out her condo, after she had died (in 1997, at age 88), we found half-used spice packages, dated 1944 (she had moved with them), hand-mended undies (my mother was a millionaire when she died), and, and, and, and, ... and a huge supply of sanitary napkins sewn from discarded towels. (There were no disposable sanitary napkins available during WWII and, possibly, for some time after.) When we found this supply (which occupied about 1/3 of the space in my mother's broom closet), my husband remarked that my mother might have expected to get fertile again after a possible nuclear war. :-)

With Germans who have experienced "the bad time" (when supplies were scarce) having the tendency to hoard and not throw any (if only remotely usable) items away, I can fully understand that Holocaust survivors would have the same urge. They have suffered so much more deprivation than Germans did.

I haven't read Maus; it's among the huge and growing list of books I should have read and haven't, but I enjoyed reading this conversation anyway, Arnie and everybody. There's one thing I recently learned I want to contribute, and that is that there wasn't a word for genocide in English until around the time of WWII, according to Steven Pinker, whose tome I'm plowing through. He said it used to be considered that when one's side lost a war or got wiped out or thinned out, anyway, it was considered a verdict of God or of history, or whatever, so it was often taken as a shameful thing. So that's a reason, possibly, that it took so long for Jews to talk about the Holocaust and for some like Arnie's father who remained unable to speak. I know this is just one hypothesis about "why," and not a full explanation, but it was a different twist that made me view the phenomenon of not being able to speak about it in a new light. --Especially as it has stuck with me that one Jew who converted to Christianity and wrote an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish book for the Methodist church cited his family and community's inability to talk about it when he was growing up as one reason he "knew something was wrong" with them... Being able to talk about such occurrences may be a relatively new thing in history and a change for the better!

Jan wrote: "I haven't read Maus; it's among the huge and growing list of books I should have read and haven't, but I enjoyed reading this conversation anyway, Arnie and everybody. There's one thing I recently..."

My experience is that most people who have experienced terrible atrocities (war veterans, rape victims, and other abuse victims) do not talk. I think they don't talk for 2 reasons:

(1) They don't want people to picture them in such situations, for situations where one is humiliated are embarrassing.

(2) They don't expect other people to understand their experience. War veterans and abuse/rape victims hear sentences like, "Come on, let's talk about something more pleasant. It is not good for you to think about this." And many have heard insensitive remarks, such as, "It can't have been so bad or you wouldn't be alive." or, "We also didn't have enough to eat." or, "While you could rest in the trenches, we had to work our butts off." or, "You must have encouraged this guy, or he would not have raped you.", which, of course, add insult to injury.

Many have heard such remarks when other veterans/victims talked, so they decide to keep quiet in order not to initiate ignorant replies and insensitive remarks.

And as you said, in certain religions and societies, anything bad happening to a person has been labeled "punishment of God".

Something else: Almost all religious people believe in the power of prayer. Thus, most of these people turn around the equation and say (or think): If something bad has happened to a person, this person has not prayed enough. (I have yet to see a mother [religious or atheist] who doesn't pray when her child lies dying.)

And there is, of course, the case that many abuse victims have blocked the terrible memories as this was their only way to go on with their lives. Talking about a terrible experience, and thus, reliving it, will help some people to process it, whereas it will be unbearable and harmful to others.

I, for instance, could and would talk about my daughter's death (avoiding this topic would have been to me like killing the memory of her), whereas many other mothers who lost a child would break down when somebody mentioned their loss and did not wish other people to touch the subject.

Lilo wrote: "My experience is that most people who have experienced terrible atrocities (war veterans, rape victims, and other abuse victims) do not talk. I think they don't talk for 2 reasons:
(1) They don't want people to pic..."

Yes, you're right--all cases of having undergone terrible suffering and loss do have so much in common. I'm happy you were--and are--able to speak out, Lilo, for your own sake and for its inspirational value. I only meant that in the particular instance of one group's being decimated by another that I had been introduced to a new and mind-clearing view. In other words, I had learned something! :)

@ Jan:

There is this little book, written by a Jewish Rabbi, titled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People". I think I had picked it up, about 10 years ago, at a DI (2nd-hand-store of the Mormon Church), yet when I finally had time to read it, I couldn't find it. So i still haven't read it.

Could it be that this book was a response to this anti-Jewish book written for the Methodist Church? Have you ever read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People"?

You MUST read "Maus". It is a very special book. I just finished reading book 1 and will have to see that I can get book 2 from our library. (They will have to order it in from another library.) I was going to order "The Complete Maus" (books 1 and 2 together) from Amazon because this is a book I would like to own and also because I figured that this would be faster than to obtain book 2 from the library. But then, I remembered that I cannot order any books from Amazon until we finished the repurchasing of water-damaged books. We had about 300 books destroyed in the 2011 water-damage of our Salt Lake City house. The case is still not closed with the insurance. The new-for-old insurance policy turned out to be a gimmick. If we don't repurchase exactly the same books (same edition, etc.), the insurance gives us only peanuts. Now all these repurchases are in my Amazon shopping cart. I cannot mix in any other books. So I'll have to wait a few days until my Amazon shopping cart is empty again. (There are problems because many books are, meanwhile, out of print.)

I'll advise everybody to get clear information (not even in the small print of our policy) what exactly "new-for-old" means. In our case, it spelled nothing but trouble, and not only with the destroyed books. It may be different with other insurance companies. (We paid about $ 2,000 to our lawyer before he finally managed to obtain the detailed insurance guidelines. The insurance agent had not been able to obtain them.)

I am so impatient to read Maus 2. Had I known how great these Maus-books are, I would have purchased them in the first place rather than getting them from the library. (I don't normally read graphic books. And had it not been for Artie, I would have never touched a graphic book about the Holocaust.)

Lilo, I know the book you're speaking of--a mega bestseller. I haven't read it but read one of the author's (Harold Kushner) later books. No, it was from 1981, and the one I'm speaking of was Israel-Palestine: A Mission Study for 2007-2008.

P.S. The raison d'etre of When Bad Things Happen to Good People was the death of his child! Pretty sure your library will have it.

Thank you for the info, Jan. I just put "When Bad Things happen to Good People" on my "Get-from-the-library list", which is also getting precariously long. So sorry about the reason for this book being written.

I won't read "Israel-Palestine". This book might cause my gall bladder to boil over.

I enjoyed your review & all the comments on your review.

I enjoyed your review & all the comments on your review.

Thank you Kelli. I'm glad you enjoyed the review and the comments.

Update: I finally got Maus II via interlibrary loan, last spring. It was just as excellent and impressing as Maus I.

Unfortunately, I never made it to review the books.

We have since, finally, settled with the insurance and I have been able again to order books from Amazon. So I now own "The Complete Maus" and will reread it at some time.

@ Arnie: I wish you would post your complete reviews on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. I hate to go to other websites.

Lilo wrote: "Arnie wrote: "@ Lilo, I consider myself a very Jewish atheist. You'll see that the Maus books are not mere cartoons but are a novel or memoir in graphic form. I did follow you around GR and your co..."

I want to "like" this story but the button is missing :D

@ Dimitri:

Thank you, Dimitri. Most of the Nazis we knew were, indeed, total morons, and many of them were outright evil, whereas others were just "Mitlaeufer" (= those who run with the crowd).

We only knew one intelligent Nazi. (He was a university professor and a friend of non-Nazi relatives of ours. My family did not socialize with Nazis.) This man was a good person but a hopeless dreamer. He had fallen for Hitler's promises of an ideal world.

Not sure how I'd turn out as an interwar German, but in the wake of the Molenbeek terrorism scare probably no better than other regular people. Feeling bad about book burnings and losing at least one good friend.

and joining the Edmund Burke majority.

Dimitri wrote: "Not sure how I'd turn out as an interwar German, but in the wake of the Molenbeek terrorism scare probably no better than other regular people. Feeling bad about book burnings and losing at least o..."

I have not heard of the Molenbeek terrorism. How did you lose at least one good friend? And what's the Edmund Burke majority?