As I read the second book of Maus, I thought about the accounts of a few Holocaust survivors. It seems that each one has a different explanation for how they survived the Holocaust. While there may be legitimate arguments for why people survive and others do not, it is also plausible to say that it is just random as the therapist in book II says. One thing that we do know is that the explanations of survival that many prisoners must have taken before they died are not known.
The first account is Art’s father, Vladek. He did not elaborate much on his explanation except that he survived because he used his head. It was made apparent that throughout his story, he was clever in avoiding starvation and sickness. He takes on jobs as a tin man and a shoe maker in order to stay a valuable asset to the soldiers. Being smart is Vladek’s explanation for why he survived.
The second account is that of Victor Frankl. He received his Masters in Psychology in 1928, and was very observant of people’s behavior in the concentration camps. He misdiagnosed patients to save them from being exterminated. Along with this, he was taken to a concentration camp, had a near death experience with typhoid fever, and questioned whether life was worth living at times. His explanation for survival was hope. He hoped that his family, including his wife, was still alive. This, he argued, for many was why he survived.
The third account is that of the therapist’s in book II. He listens to Art speak about his father’s explanation of survival and discounts it saying that it was random who survived and who did not. This made me question the explanations of Vladek and Frankl. It is true that one can survive by being clever and also through the motivation of hope, but death was mostly out of their control at some point. What am I to think?
It is interesting to think about why certain people survived and others did not, but really I think randomness is part of it while being clever was also. There is no question many clever people that were full of hope were murdered but there is also people that had given up that probably survived. It is hard to question such things but makes for a interesting internal debate.
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