Resourcefulness In Maus

Sarah Jane Arma Odal
First essay: Maus
Date: February 23, 2013

“Holocaust survivor” Art Spiegelman’s famous book Maus tells a story about the Holocaust that happened during the Second World War that killed many people, mostly Jews, and the relationship of the author with his father. Aside from that, a big part of his book is about how the author’s father, Vladek, miraculously survived the Holocaust. As the story goes on, we will see how Vladek uses resourcefulness, his will and determination as well as being able to make friends.

To start off with, throughout the whole book Vladek uses his resourcefulness which is one of the main reason he survived the terrible Holocaust. Vladek always tries to find things that he can use to trade
Many of the victims of the Holocaust just gave up such as Anja’s own sister who decided to kill herself and Vladek and Anja’s first son rather than going to the gas chambers. An illustration of Vladek’s willingness to live is when the prisoners, including Vladek, had the chance to work for the Germans, one of the prisoner said that he would rather die than work for them but Vladek didn’t agree (p. 54, vol. 1). Vladek think it’s better to work for the Germans than staying in the prison camp to starve in the cold. Another perfect example is when Vladek says to Anja: “No darling! To die, it’s easy…But you have to struggle for life…And you’ll see that together we’ll survive” (p.122, vol.1). We can really see that Vladek wants to cling on to life no matter how much they struggle, he believes that they will get through it. Though that moment it really looks like they didn’t have much of a chance, he was still able to find a way to console Anja. Further in the book, when Vladek was very ill and weak, when he heard that they can go as an exchange war prisoners, he wanted to go because he thought he might actually survive and it is a good opportunity to leave the prison camp. To summarize this paragraph, Vladek survived because he was willing and determined to survive, even though he was went through a lot with the Nazis he
His connections through people helped Vladek many times and as first example Vladek came up with an idea to bribe a German soldier and his friend Orbach was nice enough to register him as his cousin, then Vladek was released (p.62-63, vol. 1). I would say that Vladek is lucky because if his friend did not help him he will be one of the prisoners who got shoot. For another illustration, Vladek along with Anja went looking for friends who will let them stay with them and hide them from the German soldier, fortunately they succeeded. Vladek and Anja finds Mr Lukowski, and he is very generous to both of them and he give them a nicer place to hide, in a barn (p.136-137, vol.1). Also a good example is when Vladek befriends the kapo: “I ate, ate, ate as he watched. Then I taught him a couple hours and we spoke a little” (p. 31-32, vol. 2). Having a connection to the kapo gives Vladek a chance to eat good food: “Here I saw rolls! I saw eggs! Meat! Coffee! All the table full! You know what it was to see such things” (p. 32, vol. 2). Not only does he get food, but he also has a nice and easier job than the other prisoners and also a nice place to sit instead of dying of hunger like the others. To conclude this paragraph, Vladek had a lot of connection and he can make friends easily which probably why he is able to get out of Holocaust