The Continuing Impacts Of The Holocaust: The Holocaust Analysis

707 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The impact of the holocaust

Noreen Minnock
Professor Katrya Byram
German 3252
13 February 2014
The Continuing Impacts of the Holocaust on Families Analyzed through German Literature
“Mainly I remember ARGUING with him… and being told that I couldn’t do anything as well as he could” – Art
“And now that you’re becoming successful, you feel bad about proving your father wrong.” – Pavel
“No matter what I accomplish, it doesn’t seem much compared to surviving Auschwitz.” Art
Maus Volume 2, Page 44

The second portion of the semester has had a focus on how the Holocaust has continued to cause devastation and familial conflict even after the war ended. Of the texts we have read, Maus by Art Speigelman and Still Alive by Ruth Kluger were two very different accounts of the Holocaust, however there was one strong continuity between the texts: the effects of the Holocaust were not exclusive to any single person or family, survivors and their offspring continued to suffer long after escaping the camps. The constant tension documented in Maus between Speigelman and his father was not exclusive to their family as Holocaust survivors; Ruth Kluger also incorporates her family struggles into her book by detailing the differences between her and her mother, even after her mother has passed away. Because their experiences differ, with Speigelman being the son of a Holocaust victim and Kluger actually enduring it, the texts took different forms, both linguistically and aesthetically, to communicate their messages of familial conflict.
Speigelman uses the selected quote to engage the reader and make them aware of how it feels to be raised by Holocaust victims, his dad in particular. In this passage, Speigelman speaks with his friend Pavel about how he has recently been experie...

... middle of paper ...

...is father did allowed the reader to really see the torment Nazi Germany brought on families. Kluger’s specific word choice – calling her mother paranoid and often eluding to the distain she felt towards her – also allowed the reader to experience the resentment among the family members. Even still, the Holocaust’s terror is not exclusive; those who endured it struggled to find their way in the world, and their family members struggle to understand why their parents act as they do sometimes, as well as how to come to terms with the fact that their parents had to endure such a terrible time.

Klüger, Ruth. Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. New York: Feminist at the City University of New York, 2001. Print.
Spiegelman, Art, Louise Fili, and Art Spiegelman. MAUS: A Survivor's Tale, II: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon, 1991. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Elie Wiesel's Horrifying Holocaust Experience

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.

    Read More

  • I Never Saw Another Butterfly Vs Night Essay

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine being trapped in a ghetto, seeing communities leaving in trains, families being split up, never to see each other again.. The emotions that each and every Holocaust survivor must’ve gone through is overwhelming. Some things that are taken for granted, will never be seen again. While reading the two texts, Night by Elie Wiesel and “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Pavel Friedman, The two predominant emotions that prevailed most to Holocaust victims and survivors were hope and fear.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Night, by Elie Wiesel

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Most historical events, whether beneficial or detrimental to society, bear witnesses. Regardless of how many total were affected by the event, each person owns a personal account of what they endured during the event. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, expresses the personal account of Elizer, a Jewish teenager, who fought to stay alive during the holocaust, and shows the importance of witness accounts, the will to survive, and the remembrance of past historical events. Night encompasses the idea of “Literature of Witness” by simultaneously showing how millions of people were affected by the holocaust and how each person, principally Elizer, has their own personal story to tell to understand and remember that horrendous time.

    Read More

  • Father and Son Relationship in Elie Wiesel´s Night

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.

    Read More

  • A Picture is worth a Thousand Words: The use of Animal Allegory in Maus

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    The victims of the Holocaust lose sight of who they are during this time and begin to live their life by playing a part they believe they were because of their race. Loman discussed the irony behind the cat-and-mouse metaphor that Spiegelman uses in his graphic novel in his article titled “’Well Intended Liberal Slop’: Allegories of Race in Spiegelman’s Maus”. In his article he states,

    Read More

  • The Holocaust: The Uniqueness Of The Holocaust

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    During World War II there was event that lead to deaths of millions of innocent people. This even is known as the holocaust, millions of innocent people were killed violently, there was mass murders, rapes and horrific tortures. The question I will attempt to answer in the course of this paper is if the holocaust was a unique event in history. In my opinion there were other mass murders that people committed justified by the feeling of being threatened. But I don 't believe that any were as horrific and inhumane as Germany’s genocide of the Jewish people.

    Read More

  • Women in the Holocaust

    538 Words  | 2 Pages

    Weitzman, Lenore , and Dalia Ofer. Women in the Holocaust. Yale University Express, 1999. eBook.

    Read More

  • The Use Of Humor In Art Spiegelman's Maus

    1269 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.

    Read More

  • I Have Lived a Thousand Years

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed…“(Wiesel 32) Livia-Bitton Jackson wrote a novel based on her personal experience, I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Elli was a Holocaust victim and her only companion was her mother. Together they fought for hunger, mistreatment and more. By examining the themes carefully, the audience could comprehend how the author had a purpose when she wrote this novel. In addition, by seeing each theme, the audience could see what the author was attacking, and why. By illustrating a sense of the plight of millions of Holocaust victims, Livia-Bitton Jackson explores the powerful themes of one’s will to survive, faith, and racism.

    Read More

  • Surviving Hitler Essay

    698 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Silber Medal winning biography, “Surviving Hitler," written by Andrea Warren paints picture of life for teenagers during the Holocaust, mainly by telling the story of Jack Mandelbaum. Avoiding the use of historical analysis, Warren, along with Mandelbaum’s experiences, explains how Jack, along with a few other Jewish and non-Jewish people survived.

    Read More

  • The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Art Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    Using lines and basic shapes to emphasize shading and detail and then teamed with such a complex theme, Art’s story and graphics join together in a complimentary marriage. With the nearly childlike drawings and the intense mature storyline, there is a message that this is being written by the child telling the story of the parent. The story emphasizes his father’s inability to grow and repair from his past but even without the words you can almost see that Art has never truly be able to move past his the trauma of growing up with his parents. Using his frustrations and the need to explore the history of his father’s idiosyncrasies, Art creates a poignant story not only about the tragedy of the holocaust, but of the realities of being a child growing up with survivor parents.

    Read More

  • The impact of survivor’s guilt in Art Spiegelman’s Maus

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Spiegelman, Art. Maus II: a Survivor’s Tale : And Here my Troubles Began. New York:

    Read More

  • Nazi Medical Experiments: Useful but Unethical

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bard, Mitchell G., ed. The Holocaust. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001. Print. Turning Points in World History.

    Read More

  • The Key Game Ida Fink Analysis

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    A prominent them in the literature of the Holocaust we have read in this class is the role of family and heritage. Many of the works we have read have dealt with familial relationships, cultural heritage, and the passing down of culture from one generation to the next.

    Read More

More about The Continuing Impacts Of The Holocaust: The Holocaust Analysis

Open Document