Vladek’s reminiscing in Volume II contained some beautiful moments that I found to be both uplifting and emotionally devastating (I was particularly moved by the scene where Mandelbaum is given the shoes and belt, and the story of Vladek being comforted by the priest). Yet while these touching moments certainly helped me emotionally connect with Vladek’s experiences, I would contend that the therapy session at the beginning of Chapter 2 may be the most telling moment of either volume.
With the phrase “A Survivor’s Tale” serving as the tagline for the entire text, it’s evident that exploring different forms of survival will be a recurring theme for Spiegelman. The dialogue between Art and his therapist puts this idea at the forefront and poses some interesting questions on not only what surviving entails, but also how the act of surviving is viewed by others. Of course Vladek and Anja are literal survivors of the Holocaust. But Anja’s suicide and Vladek’s off-putting behavior and personality show they may not have survived the event from an emotional perspective. Likewise, Art serves in one sense as survivor of his own troubled upbringing, yet also carries severe emotional baggage with him pertaining to both his strained relationship with his father and guilt over his mother’s suicide. I would suspect Spiegelman uses the tagline somewhat ironically, suggesting that something as massive and as horrible as the Holocaust will scar all who are involved, even those whose contact with the experience is only second hand in nature, as is the case with Art.
Another question that Spiegelman seems interested in exploring from the therapy session is: what is the ultimate benefit of the survivor telling his or her story? Art admits to admiring his father for his survival, and from a reader’s perspective, I can vouch for feelings of admiration for Vladek for his will to live, his tenacity, and his kind acts for others in Auschwitz. Yet the therapy session also brings up the futility of the survivors’ stories, and asks what, if any, lessons we can learn from them. As Pavel accurately points out, despite all the books written about the Holocaust, intolerance and genocide continue around the globe. And we seem to even see a microcosm of this futility represented at the individual level with Vladek’s own racism, despite his very personal experiences as a victim of ethnically motivated hate. I’m not sure if Spiegelman gives the reader any clear cut answers to let us know why it’s important that these stories are told. But given the dedication that Art (the creator) puts into detailing his father’s story and his own quest to get the story from his father – it would seem to point to an inherent catharsis in the act of storytelling for both father and son.
John