The Kindred of Holocaust Survivors

It has been about 70 years since the end of the Holocaust, with its end in 1945. Many of the survivors of the concentrations camps have since passed but their children live on. Many of the children may have lived a different life if the Holocaust would have never happened. The children of Holocaust survivors have to deal with a variety of issues with themselves and between their parents.

”Many who have lost parents and relatives feel a total lack of trust in the world and in humanity, and that makes it difficult to relate to anybody,” (The New York Times )

Currently, I am reading a book that was written by a Holocaust survivor’s son. The book is called Maus and is written by Art Spiegeleman. It is a graphic novel that tells the story of the Holocaust through his father’s memory and it also has more than just that. It tells about the current relationship that him and his dad had at the time of him writing the book.  I think the quote above relates well to the author. I don’t mean it in a negative way though. It is just that when I analyze Art’s writing of his story, it seems that he doesn’t relate well with anyone, including his wife. Throughout the book, there is a sence of a very distant relationship that him and Vladeck (his father) share.

“In some ways he’s just like the racist caricature of the miserly old Jew.” (131)

This is just one of the many distant feelings that Art expresses about his father. Art makes it clear throughout the book that him and his  father have never had a normal relationship that most fathers and sons typically have in our culture. A big part in why that might be is because Art’s dad went through the Holocaust and that changed him to a different person than he would have been if the Holocaust had never affected him.

HINDS, MICHAEL D. “RELATIONSHIPS; HELPING HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ CHILDREN - New York Times.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 05 Nov. 1984. Web. 20 Oct. 2009.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus : A Survivor’s Tale My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Print 

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