Vladek Holocaust Quotes

"It was crying and praying. So long we survived. And now we waited only that they shoot, because we had not else to do" (267). This quote from the end of the novel ironically describes what the Jewish people had to endure after the concentration camps. Vladek Spieglman develops two personalities in Maus I and II—before and after the concentration camps. Though Vladek certainly did survive the holocaust, old Vladek did not. Vladek’s post-holocaust life was haunted by the horrors he witnessed while being in the concentration camps; he went from a young, handsome resourceful man to a miserable, old man who does nothing but complain. In the opening, Vladek was very reluctant about discussing his past with even his own son. This hesitation came

Here, Vladek and Anja were segregated from one another as well as from their son Richelou. While in Auschwitz, Vladek learned to take extreme measures as he had a passion to live. Vladek learned to save and eat his food in small portions, “and one time each day they gave us a small bread, crunchy like glass….We got one little brick of this which had to last a whole day”. In this quote, Vladek showed that he used his food as a means of surviving—he would eat his food in small portions and use the rest to his advantage for bribing. At the camp, Vladek worked numerous jobs varying from being an English tutor, tinsmith to being a shoe maker. Vladek’s drive to survive for his wife Anja is what kept him going; after his stable job as a tinsmith, he began thinking of ways to find information on his wife Anja’s well-being. This drive to find Anja, his loving life, in a sense gave his purpose to keep living through the horrendous conditions. When Vladek, his wife Anja along with all the other Jewish people were released from the concentration camps, they still did not feel safe. The Holocaust did not end for the camp survivors when they were liberated; the pain of the trauma they endured would haunt them throughout the rest of their lives. The horror the Jewish people had to live through in the concentration camps is the cause of personality

Vladek’s relationship with Mala, his new wife, was never like his relationship with Anja. It is apparent that the Holocaust affected his new life and relationships with his family. Vladek’s son Art and wife Mala avoided coming in contact with him because of his obsessive compulsiveness. Vladek constant complaints and criticism’s droves Mala away, he is evidently incapable of loving someone as he did his wife because of his Holocaust experiences and negative side effects. Post-Holocaust Vladek is stingy about money, he does things like leave the stove on all day in his cabin so he doesn’t have to waste matches to light the pilot, he returns a bag of open and partially eaten groceries and gets upset about two salt jars being open at the same time. Without a doubt it is evident the holocaust is responsible for the severe personality shift Vladek had undergone. Although Vladek does not notice the huge personality shift but he does recognize the little things—he admits his compulsiveness when he states that he is reluctant to waste anything. “I cannot forget…ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb” (78). Vladek has come to both appreciate and be obnoxiously nit-picky about the smallest things. Vladek’s relationship with his son Art is fairly complex as Art feels his father compares him to his dead brother, Richelou. Art does not enjoy spending time with his father