Identity. You dont know your past, you dont know your present, and you cant begin to speculate about the future. I want to suggest that there is been a major paradigm shift from the writings of survivors to those of their descendants, their daughters and their sons. So as elly viccel explains we leave the literature of testimony and that is what the survivors are writing, what they gave us and were going to the Second Generation. What do we know about the Second Generation generally . One thing we know, they inherit the trauma, and the Second Generation is both the first and the last. That is to say the last generation that has contact, physical contact with the survivors. Their parents. And they are the first generation, the first generation born after the holocaust and born into freedom. So the first and they are the last. The Second Generation got a very big impetuous from a woman named Helen Epstein. Helen epstein is herself a daughter of survivors in czechoslovakia. In 1979 she published a book called children of the holocaust. Epstein wrote an article about the Second Generation. She sent it to the New York Times and they sent it back saying, what is this . What is this Second Generation. It doesnt exist and it is not important. So much for newspapers. So a little bit later we have children of the holocaust. What did Helen Epstein do in that book . She interviewed people, daughters and sons of survivors, who lived in a variety of places, north america, europe and israel. All of whom connected by their relationship to the holocaust. And all of whom were trying to figure out exactly what that relationship was. They were just tiny portions of the legacy of the holocaust. Because the most important event in their lives happened before they were born. And somehow they knew the secret. For example, here is Helen Epstein. Here is what she says about being a daughter of survivors. For years it lay in an iron box buried so deep inside me that i was never sure just what it was. I knew i carried slippery combustible things, more secret than sex, and more dangerous than any shadow or ghost. Ghosts had shape and name, what lay inside me was so potent that words crumbled before they could describe. Epstein said further they need to find a way to channel the anger, the sadness, the outrage into some kind of constructive action. And she talks about being obsessed by holocaust imagery. For example, helen used to live in new york city. Taught journalism at nyu. And she said, frequently on the subway train she used to imagine that as a cattle car going to auschwitz. Moreover, when she would go to concerts at carnegie hall, she would imagine that armed men concerts at carnegie hall, she would imagine that armed men with machine guns would break in and start killing people. Enter generational transmission of trauma. Questions about anything . Okay. Lets go to the main event. Art spiegelman, how many have heard of him before this class . Spiegelman was born on february 15th, 1948, in stockholm, sweden. Hes an american cartoonist based in new york city. Best known for his graphic novel maus. Two volumes, the second and final of which appeared in 1991. Now spiegelman did Extensive Research before embarking and while embarking during this project. He read survivor accounts. He watched film footage. But he said the most important influence on him was art drawn by prisoners in the various concentration and death camps. He poured over this art because obviously that is his medium of expression. One initial comment, how do we read graphic novels . Whats the difference between a graphic novel and a regular novel . Anybody know . Whats the difference . Yep. Good, good, good. Graphic novel has images. The images are supposed to be telling us something. Heres mau srkss. Both graphic novels. Take out the subtitle. Maus i my father bleeds history. So whats wrong with this subtitle . Hes free but the subtitle in here my troubles began. Isnt that counterintuitive . After all auschwitz is behind him and hes saying here my troubles began. Why would that be . The fact that he made it. The attendant issue of survivor guilt and the fact that the trauma continues. For example, unlike shindlers list when the prisoners and the days of the holocaust are seen in black and white, suddenly the war is over and its a color. As if everything is cool, nothing to worry about. Speaking of trauma, im having a little trouble with this, but ill work on it it. So maus requests srksmaus appears in 1991. It was published in 2011. And meta mouse is a complete package. Its a book, its got dvds, you can watch spiegelmans interviews. You can hear what he has to say in private reflections. Meta maus is worth looking at if you get a chance. Now lest get to the big deal here. The genre issue. But what is the genre issue . I think its comic and its the oxymoron of it. Let me suggest another part. For spiegelman, comics is broken down into comix. Thats the graphic novel. Comix, a mixture of images and words. What else is the genre issue here . Were going to return to this later. A depiction of the characters as animals. What animals . Who was who . Who were the main characters . World like woody allen says the lion shall down with the lamb but the lamb shall have a very restless sleep. Cats and mice, not so much. They dont get along too well. There was a major, major discussion, argument about the use of animal figures. Spiegelmans book is the single most influential Second Generation work that we have. It won a pulitzer prize. There was a controversy where it should be listed on the best sell seller list. Fiction or nonfiction . The New York Times at first listed it under the fiction category. Spiegelman objected vigorously. They changed it to the nonfiction category because its not fiction. Its both, as we heard, a biography and an autobiography of Art Spiegelman. Hes writing and drawing himself into this graphic novel because its like. How would you like to be the second set of children born to job, the biblical version . How would that be growing up in that house . How would it it be to be a replacement child . Thats the issue. Thats one of the issues that spiegelman confronts. Heres the controversy. First the people who say its a good thing that spiegelman did it. Lawrence langer says its a serious form of literature sustaining and even intensifying the power of the first. He reviewed volume 2 in the New York Times. Perhaps no narrative will contain the whole experience, but Art Spiegelman found an authentic form to draw us closer to its bleak heart. Is that true in your experience . I think so. It draws us in and makes us part of the story as well. Anybody else . He doesnt seem to have any personal connection portraying humans rather than animals and that emotional. But if it didnt have a personal connection, what use is it to us as readers . Representation of the survivors. I felt that i could relate more because they are mice. I felt it would make it easier. I think thats opposite. I think thats great. I think when you start reading it, you spark some curiosity like how the author is going to portray them in a truthful way. It does draw us into the narrative and certainly the image. Now jeffrey hartman, a distinguished literary critic at d. L. University, expands the idea of the use of animal. The metamorphosis of the human figure recognizes has affected how we think about ourselves as a species. The human question mark. Whats the difference between humans and animals . Is this how humans operate . Evidently yes. So it problemtizes all of the exhortations about the glory and the beauty of humanity. A little lower than the angels. Quite a bit lower. Terrance depray says Something Else about maus. Its a animal romance complete with guilt and unresolved complexities caused by the past upon the present. The kind of suffering that cannot be dismissed but only shared in the survivors tail before us. So are you persuaded by these three observations . Please say yes. Good. Because now i want to go to the objections. Objections to maus, the most powerful of the objections was stated by hillel halkin. He was an american who made them move to israel many years ago and is himself a distinguished literary critic. What does he say about maus . He doesnt like it. He says the followingg; drawing people as animals is doubly dehumanized. By virtue of symbolism and by virtue of graphic limitations. What about symbolism . He says havent the nazis already dehumanized the jews enough . Havent they already tortured, beaten, starved and murdered them . Dehumanized them . Why do we need animals . One argument. The second argument, graphic limitation. For halkin, animal faces simply are not an expressive end all. Human faces are far more expressive. What do you think about this argument . Doesnt it make it easier . It makes it easier for the average nonjewish person to relate to the comic with animals. So you break it down between jewish and non jewish. Its less painful to see less expression on an animals face than to see a humans face suffer so much. Thats probably so. Its easier for everyone to read. Okay, good, but is it true . Are animal faces unexpressable . How many people here own a pet, aside from a husband or wife . Okay, so, what do you say . I think the animal faces are more expressive. I felt more emotion from look at those mice that were being hung than i think i would have on a human. I think animal faces can be quite expressive. I think it does make it more expressive. As an example, people find faces in pieces of toast or something. And then it it becomes a big deal. I think as humans we look like its universal. We look for a face and it makes it easier because Everything Else is blank. I think certainly thats the argument that professor cheney of Dartmouth University makes that we look for face, we can relate to faces. Maybe because of some narcissistic reasons, but we look at faces. We just cant resist them. The question here is, is the animal face expressive or is it not expressive . I get the sense of the meeting here that most folks think that the animal face can be quite expressive. As well as the observation that non jewish people may be able to relate more if its presented in the comix form. They are like animals, like a sad story, but its like a movie, like a hollywood movie. Youre not protraying the real show the reality so it wont happen again. Interesting. So what can we say . We have arguments on both sides of the issue, which is good. It means that the holocaust continues to generate controversy, which it should. Continues to engage us, as it should. Somebody else had a question . Yes, sir. Nothing has ever expressed the pain and suffering as the faces of survivors on film, black and white film that was taken on liberation. So youre agreeing with the position . Yeah. All right, all right. Any other comments about these two diametrically opposed position, to see the story in a way they can relate to that they may not pick up from having just words or just from a film. I think it creates another audience. I think thats another point. It universal liezs the story. People who pick up on graphic cues more than the written word certainly. Everybody, as i said before, everybody in the world knows about the relationship between mice and cats. And it causes us to reflect on the issues that are raised here. I think thats true. Let me move on. Okay. Some of the psychological issues that we find in maus and indeed in the entire range of Second Generation literature. The lack of parental boundaries, were going to return to these. The lack of the validation of childrens emotional needs. The role of science of children and parents because they fear hurting each other when in fact what you dont know is more scary than what you do know. Overprotectiveness, rage, images of survivors. On the one hand, my fathers a hero, he survived the holocaust. On the other hand, good lord look at the way he dresses, like a real immigrant, its terrible. Besides he talks funny. All of these issues are issues which survivors, their offspring need to confront. They confront them in a variety of ways. Any questions about these points . Which are definitive of Second Generation literature. Lack of validation for childrens emotional needs. You dont want to eat your vegetables . I saw my mother starve to death in auschwitz. Thats not exactly a comforting image. Lack of parental boundaries. Let me see how i interfere in your life more. Parents are known for not understanding anything any way until we grow up and become parents. But the lack of ability to say, okay, you want to go out on a date, fine, go, enjoy yourself. But dont forget if there is flawed parenting and parenting is a difficult enough task in any case let alone after you survive the holocaust, remember one thing. At the time when the survivors were supposed to be learning parenting skills, they were in auschwitz. Not exactly a good place to learn how to nurture people. Not exactly a good place to learn how to express love, comfort and encourage ment. Sure theres flawed parenting. What else would you expect . I want to touch briefly on this. This is a holocaust story, but yet what do we know about the role of the english . Surprising at least in two ways. Remember in maus i, he is called the sheik. Whats a sheik . What is a sheik . As opposed to chic. Whats a sheik . A nobleman and a ladiesman. How does he meet her any way . How do they meet . What language do they speak . English in poland, so they have a relationship based on the fact that both of them speak english. How bizarre. What about the second point . English as life saving . How do we know that . That was one of the camps. He wanted to learn english, so he found out that vladik spoke english. Okay, one way we know english is life saving is that vladik teaches a capo english in return for extra food. Literally life saving. English becomes the inadvertent language of holocaust representation. Vladik speaks english but of course, in a refugee cadence way. You know hes a refugee and not a native speaker. If you want to know more about this issue of english as the language of the holocaust, which strikes as quite bizarre, i recommend that a good book by alan rosen called sounds of defiance. Our library has it. Professor rosen raises very interesting points about how suddenly english becomes the language of the holocaust. But again all intuitive ways of looking at this. Its counterintuitive. Lets move on. Religion. They say you should never talk about politics or religion if you want to have a good time at a party. What do we know about religion in maus . Especially of course, with vladik. Well he talks a lot about something called parsha truma. Its a weekly reading, a weekly biblical reading. Its the time of important events in this book. For example, remember vladik is first imprisoned in a german prisoner of war camp. He has a dream. Whats his dream . Yep. Its either a rabbi or it isnt. Actually its not his father, its his grandfather, sorry. Both of us will stay after school. What do we know about the grandfather anyway . He tells us that he will be set free from this on the day of parsha truma. We know that the grandfather is quite religious and his prediction comes true. Vladik is freed reading of the parsha truma. But other events occur on this day too. They are married on this day. Art spiegelman is born on this day. He has his bar mitzvah on this date. So this becomes an important entree into the religious life although vladik says Something Interesting about our old friend. You remember this one . What does he say . What does vladik say when hes being interviewed . God was not there. Vladik says in auschwitz, god did not come. We were all on our own, he says. Now you might want to mentally compare that to what eli wiesel suggested that in auschwitz there was no speculation about god. God might, in fact, be an extra ration of soup. So clearly vladik is talking about a traditional image of god. Not what god became in auschwitz, at least for some people. Okay, questions . Lets move on. Righteous gentile, heres an interesting concept. What do we know about this . There are two righteous gentiles in auschwitz. Who are they . Neither of whom is named, by the way. Who are they . One was a priest. What did the priest say . Was the priest the one that saw the numbers and told him he was going to live . Yes, good. The priest says, you will live. He tells vladik that his number tattooed on his arm is equivalent to the hebrew word for life. And the priest serves as a seer. Vladik says i never saw the priest again but when i met him i was so depressed, i was so jup set, i was feeling completely hopeless, he literally saved my life by telling me that i would live. Theres another righteous gentile in this story. Who was that . The woman that was the mediator between vladik . Yeah, but in addition there was someone who was even more important. Again, nameless. This is a particular person. Who is it . Remember the french prisoner of war . Not jewish so therefore, he could receive food packages from the outside. He and vladik became friends. And he was sustained by the friendship with the french prisoner much like primo levy in survival in auschwitz was sustained by his relationship with a non jew who brought him food, lorenzo and who spoke to him, who treated him like a human being. So the french prisoner became friends with vladik and shared his food rations. He did it because the french guy knew english. Youre absolutely right, great. Because they spoke english, another example of english as a lifesaving language. Take a look at professor rosens book. So the earlier assertion that we were all alone and nobody cared, not quite true. Let us continue. Bless you. Maus. Here is the perfect, perfect example of how the childs emotional needs are simply not validated. Remember this scene . He comes back from skating with his friends and he fell and scraped his knee. His friends laughed at him and skated away. He reports this and he locked them in a room with no food for no week, then you can see what it is. What a weird thing to tell a 10yearold child. Not exactly a comforting thought, not a great way to trust the social world. See what happens. The last one, its overwhelming. Maybe they are in prison. Graphic novel, okay. Lest move on. Time flies. Heres arty with his maus mask. Vladik died of congestive heart failure. Juxtaposing important dates in the the life of his father with his own life. Over 100,000 hungarians died in auschwitz. Talk about t