Quote 41
“But here God didn’t come. We were all on our own.” (I.1.19)
Vladek’s experiences in the camp make the old proverb that “God helps those who help themselves” seem rather trite.
Quote 42
“If the SS would see she is taking food into the camp, right away they will kill her. But always she took.” (II. 1.33)
There are numerous examples of individual acts of heroism in the text. This quote describes Mancie, a <em>Kapo</em> in Birkenau who helps Vladek and Anja keep in touch.
Quote 43
“It wasn’t so easy like you think. Everyone was so starving and frightened, and tired they couldn’t believe even what’s in front of their lives.” (II.2.63)
Vladek explains why overt resistance seemed impossible to the Jewish prisoners. Constantly living in fear, starving, exhausted, with the spectacle of other prisoners being randomly beaten or killed around them, they were in an exceptional situation that nothing in their previous lives could have prepared them for.
Quote 44
“Like wild animals they would fight until there was blood. You can’t know what it is, to be hungry.” (II.3.81)
Like Quote #9, another ironic statement, given the representation of characters as animals in the text. The conditions in the camp are so brutal that people are reduced to fighting with each other like animals to survive.
Quote 45
“I got dizzy, so like now, I grabbed to a bush, and I fell…I crawled to the side so people can see me but won’t step on me. Finally someone helped.” (II.5.113)
Now in Florida, Vladek nearly has a heart attack and has to crawl by the sidewalk hoping for help. The stress on “finally” suggests that many people passed him by, a horrifying reminder that human beings may not have changed so much after the Holocaust after all.
Quote 46
“Show to me your pencil and I can explain you…such things it’s good to know exactly how was it – just in case….” (I.4.112)
Here, Vladek gets into Art’s territory, visually diagramming one of the bunkers he hid in during the war. But you have to ask, “just in case” what? The possibility of another worst-case-scenario is still on Vladek’s mind.
Quote 47
“Yes. I don’t read ever such comics, and even I am interested […] Someday you’ll be famous, like…what’s his name?” “Huh? ‘Famous like what’s-his-name?!’” “You know…the big-shot cartoonist…” “What cartoonist could you know? …Walt Disney??” “Yah! Walt Disney!” (I.5.135)
Walt Disney is, of course, the creator of one of the most iconic cartoon figures ever: Mickey Mouse. Ironic, considering that we are reading a book called <em>Maus.</em>
Quote 48
“I learned a little shoe fixing watching how they worked when I was with my cousin in Miloch, there in the ghetto shoe shop […] You see? It’s good to know how to do everything.” (II.2.50)
Vladek’s diagrams help Art to visualize life in the concentration camps, but these diagrams also suggest that Art’s visual skill as an artist is not so alien to his father as we might initially be led to believe.
Quote 49
“More I don’t need to tell you. We were both very happy, and lived happy, happy ever after.” (II.5.126)
There’s a see-saw in the book between Vladek’s story and Art’s retelling of Vladek’s story. Vladek’s ending to his story is a romantic “happy ever after.” But <em>Maus</em> shows us that not all was so “happy ever after” after Vladek and Anja are freed from the concentration camps. The image of his parents’ tombstone at the end of the novel reminds us that Anja committed suicide in 1968.