The Holocaust Through the Generations

In Maus we see that the Holocaust never really ended. In fact, the horrors that its victims suffered through are not only felt later on in life but also seem to be passed down from one generation to the next. There is no denying that the father suffers from the effects of his time in Auschwitz, there are so many examples that I can only name a few. His habitual need to save things he views as valuable. His depression from his long time wife passing away. His treatment of people in general. All these things show classic survivors guilt. The father is more likely than not ashamed that he alone, of all his friends and family he is the only one to live on. Of course his wife also survived the war, and yet we see very little of life between the end of the war and the beginning of the book when the wife has already committed suicide. So, once the survivors guilt is laid down there is only one person for the father to take it out on, the only person left whom he has any positive feelings for, the son.

Here is the dynamic. A son that never had to experience the robbery of life that the father did experience. The son who has never had to abandon his hopes and dreams and simply survive literally on a daily basis. A son who has had everything and doesn’t understand how much of a luxury that is. The father understands and is desperate to at the same time show the son how good his life is and yet how easily it can be taken away. Due to the son’s inability to understand it becomes a sort of constant reminder to him that he is weaker than his father, mother, and dead brother. Resentment will naturally set in and ultimately the only way to clear the relationship is though some kind of catharsis. Hence, Maus.