notes about chapters

Chapter 1 the sheik The characters in this story are depicted as anthropomorphic animals (animals that talk, dress, and behave like humans). The Jewish characters, like Artie, his father, and their families, appear as mice. The story begins around 1978, with Artie visiting his father Vladek in Rego Park, New York. Vladek looks frail and unhealthy, he’s had two heart attacks, and the suicide of his wife Anja (Artie’s mother) a decade earlier has taken a serious toll on him. Vladek is remarried to a woman named Mala with whom he constantly argues. While Vladek rides a stationary bike, Artie asks him to tell some stories about life during World War II so that Artie can create a comic book about them. Vladek resists at first, but then agrees. Vladek’s story begins around 1935, when he is a handsome young man living in Czestochowa. The Sheik , which is where this chapter gets its name.) A friend introduces Vladek to a young woman named Lucia Greenberg, and they date for a while, despite the fact that Vladek doesn’t have strong feelings for her. In 1935, while visiting his family in Sosnowiec, Vladek meets and is charmed by Anja Zylberberg, a smart, wealthy young woman. After Vladek returns to Czestochowa, he and Anja exchange letters and talk on the phone regularly. Vladek decides to end his relationship with Lucia, then moves to Sosnowiec and marries Anja in 1937. Chapter 2 the honeymoon Artie visits his father regularly over the next few months to hear more stories. One day, he asks Vladek about Anja’s old boyfriends. The story shifts to Vladek’s memories. As Vladek heads home one day, he hears that the police have arrested a local seamstress. Anja’s parents tell Vladek that Anja has been translating secret communist messages for her ex-boyfriend, and that to avoid being arrested, Anja gave the documents to a seamstress. The Polish police (depicted as pigs) found the documents and arrested the seamstress (she was freed three months later). Vladek tells Anja that he’ll end their marriage if she continues working with communists. Anja’s father helps Vladek buy a textile factory in Bielsko, and a few months later in October 1937, Vladek’s first son, Richieu, is born. Vladek runs the factory during the week and comes back to visit Anja and Richieu on the weekends. One day while at the factory, he receives a call that Anja is suffering from severe postpartum depression. Vladek takes Anja to a sanitarium in Czechoslovakia, and Anja’s family looks after Richieu and the factory. The sanitarium is much like a resort; Vladek and Anja have their own room and go dancing every night. While riding on the train to the sanitarium, Vladek sees a Nazi flag for the first time. Other Jews on the train tell Vladek that the Nazis (depicted as cats) are arresting Jewish people and taking over Jewish businesses. In August of 1939, Vladek receives a letter notifying him that he’s been drafted by the Polish army. While he goes to the frontline to fight the Nazis, Anja’s parents take her and Richieu to Sosnowiec. Chapter 3: Prisoner of War ● Art arrives at Vladek’s to record more stories. At dinner, Art tells Mala about how strict Vladek was in getting Art to eat all his dinner. After dinner, Vladek begins to complain about Mala, but Art asks Vladek to describe the period in 1939 when he was drafted into the military. ● By September, 1939, Vladek was a Polish soldier in the trenches. One night, near morning, he was waiting in a trench, with the Germans across the way. ● Vladek backtracks a bit here, and tells Art about the time his brother dodged the draft by

starving himself and pulling his teeth out. Eep. Vladek couldn’t go through with that ordeal, so he ended up being drafted into the reserves. ● So, back to the trenches, just before dawn, September, 1939. A Polish officer commands Vladek to shoot, even though he can’t see anything. Vladek begins shooting, and before he knows it, he is also being shot at. ● Vladek kills at least one man before the Poles lose the skirmish and they are taken prisoner by the Germans. Vladek narrowly escapes a beating when he speaks German to his German captors. As the prisoners are forced to help the German sort out the wounded and the dead, Vladek finds the soldier he killed. ● At a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near Nuremberg, the Jewish POWs are separated from the others and made to do hard labor. ● As Vladek recounts one story about cleaning out the stables, he reprimands Art for flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor. ● At the POW camp, the Jewish prisoners are treated much worse than the other prisoners. They are given unheated cabins and little food. So, six months later, when the Germans asked for volunteers for other labor projects, Vladek volunteered. ● At the labor camp, conditions are much better, but the work is still brutal and they are still treated cruelly by the German soldiers. ● One night, Vladek has a dream where his grandfather’s voice tells him that he will leave the camp on the day of Parshas Truma . ● Vladek explains to Art that every week on Saturday, a section from the Torah is read; this is called a parsha . Parshas Trumaparsha , refers to the day when they read a particular parsha , but that particular day is three months ahead of Vladek’s dream. ● One day, Vladek, among other prisoners, is released. A rabbi friend points out that the day is Parshas Truma . Vladek explains to Art that this day is significant not only because it is the day he was released, but it was also the parsha on which he married Anja, and also the week Art was born. ● But they’re not out of the woods yet. Vladek began the war as a Polish soldier, but now he enters a Poland that’s occupied by Germany and, unfortunately, subject to German laws. His rabbi friend gets off in Warsaw, but Vladek never heard from him again. ● When the prisoners arrive in Lublin, Vladek learns that the previous group of prisoners had been taken into the woods and shot. The Jews of Lublin work to get some prisoners released into the homes of local Jews by claiming that the prisoners are relatives. ● Vladek is released to his uncle’s friend, Orbach. While their rations are meager, Vladek pleases the girls with a present of chocolates he saved from a Red Cross package he received on his release from war camp. When Vladek returns to Sosnowiec, he sends food packages to the Orbachs, but loses touch with them. ● Vladek sneaks his way onto a train back to Sosnowiec by hiding his Jewishness. He poses as just a Polish soldier, trying to get home, and it works on the Polish conductor, who hides him in the train. ● Vladek arrives home to Sosnowiec to find his family much changed. His mother is ill with cancer and will die a month later. His father’s beard has been shaved off in an incident where the Germans rounded up the Jewish men of the town and humiliated them. As Jews, they are subjected to a curfew, so Vladek’s mother hurries Vladek over to Anja. ● Vladek has a tearful reunion with Anja and their son Richieu, who is almost two and a half years old. ● Flash forward to present day. Vladek breaks off his story to complain once again about Mala, and Art, annoyed, gets up to leave. Art gets even more annoyed when he realizes that Vladek has thrown away his jacket. Vladek gives Art one of his own used jackets, which Art despises.

● 5. In May, 1987, Art and Françoise were expecting a baby. ● 6. Between May 16, 1944 and May 24, 1944, over 100,000 Hungarian Jews were gassed in Auschwitz. ● 7. In September, 1986, Maus I was published, and was phenomenally successful. ● 8. In May, 1968, his mother committed suicide. ● In order to get on his supervisor’s good side, Vladek is able to barter his way to some extra food. Meanwhile, Anja is being held at Birkenau. Vladek is able to get a message to her through a Hungarian prisoner, Mancie, who was also at Birkenau but brought workers over to Auschwitz. Through messages smuggled in by Mancie, Vladek learns that Anja, because of her frailty, isn’t able to keep up with the work and is often treated cruelly by her kapo. Chapter 4: saved ● It is late autumn, and Art visits his father again. Vladek wants Art to help him put up storm windows, but Art convinces him to continue on with his story. ● According to Vladek, Anja made it back to their hometown, Sosnowiec, through the Russian side of Poland. She was helped for much of the way by Mancie.