Artie's Impressions of the Holocaust in Maus II Anonymous College

In “Maus II” by Art Spiegelman a series of three panels helps to encapsulate a continuous theme throughout the two part story. In these panels Artie and Francoise are in the car driving to assist Artie’s father who has just been left by his second wife. In the car Artie claims that “I never felt guilty about Richieu. But I did have nightmares about S.S. Men coming into my class…I wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through” (16). Artie struggles with his relationship with his father, the death of his mother, his ghost-brother, and his attempt to recreate the Holocaust in a comic strip. All of these struggles connect back to his lack of common experience. He knows that due to the difference in their pasts, the difference in their upbringing, in many ways he is distanced from his family, people he cannot seem to fully understand. The series of panel mentioned before, along with the highlighted dialogue, capture Artie’s inability to connect with his family and their story due to a significant difference in their lack of shared history.

The Holocaust, to Artie, was something horrible and unfathomable that his parents experienced and lived through. This part of his family history is not...