Die widersinnig Schweine, Katzen und Mäuse

(The absurd/paradoxical pigs, cats and mics)

Pointing out the absurdity in a graphical work of Holocaust literature is not something to be taken lightly. Eventhough Art express his own concern, there were millions of people affected by this terrible event who would not like to be taken as a cartoon subject. But, what if words cannot explain such an inhuman scenario?

Maybe the answer would be as simple as his name. What is funny about Art, is the relation of his name with what he did. His last name is SPIEGELMAN,which in English means: MIRROR-MAN and when he recreated the Holocaust in images what he actually did was to MIRROR the worst historical event witnessed by HUMANS (and among them his father) doing  ART. What a fortuitous pun, isn't it?

Besides the pun, Spiegelman was into showing the absurd division of humanity by making people of each ethnicity look alike.

Thinking as a post-modernist artist and writer: "If reality has already been made art, if everyone has reflect their thoughts and life through abstract images or stories.... What is left, then? COMBINE BOTH, of course! I'll put my own thoughts in a combination of images and words, and to make it even more meaningful and attactive people will be characterized by animals that fit with their ethnicity."

Why would be the Jewish people represented as mics,Germans as cats and Poles as pigs?

It's very simple actually, there are some sayings in the German culture that may explain it. For instance, in many cultures including German's pigs are dirty, seen as impure animals. Poles in this case were seen as dirty and impure for helping the NAZIS to kill Jewish people, remember that the mostly known concentration camp built in Auschwitz was placed in Poland. Otherwise, Germans say that Jewish people speak MAUSHELN German, MAUSHELN means "to speak like a Jew" but it's also similar to the word MAUS=MOUSE. Well, finally for te Germans the only option was being the cats for being the predators of Jewish people.

Having this in mind, when people are concerned with German culture the simbolism tends to become ephemeral, what's the real importance about Spiegelman Maus is the recreation of the Holocaust in a comic showing the ESSENCE of one of the most important events in the history of Humankind not though facts, not through reality, not through abstract forms, but through all of them at the same time.