How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Page Number). Page numbers refer to The Complete Maus.
Quote #7
“People haven’t changed … maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.” (II.2.35)
Art wonders here if the memory of the Holocaust is enough to prevent similar genocides in the future. The scary part is that it may not be.
Quote #8
“Each morning and evening they made an Appel. They counted the live ones and dead ones to see it wasn’t any missing … we stood sometimes the whole night while they counted again and again.” (II.2.30)
We get another image of Nazi bureaucracy at work with their obsessive counting at the Appel, or roll call. With Vladek’s own obsessive counting (of his pills, crackers, the money in his checking account), we have to wonder if his neuroses have some origin in his experience with the Nazis.
Quote #9
“Auschwitz, it was a camp where they gave you to work so they didn’t finish you so fast. Birkenau was even more bad. It was 800 people in a building made for 50 horses. There it was just a death place with Jews waiting for gas … And there it was Anja.” (II.2.31)
Auschwitz has become the name that most people associate with the Holocaust, but it was Birkenau where over a million Jews lost their lives.