Maus: Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Artie is lying in bed with his wife, Françoise, when the telephone rings. Mala is on the other line, yelling in frustration. Vladek climbed onto the roof to fix the leaky drainpipe, she says, and she had to rescue him when he got dizzy. Artie is exasperated. Vladek takes over the phone and begins insisting that Artie come to Queens to help him fix the drainpipe. Artie, still groggy – it is 7:30 in the morning – says he’ll call Vladek after he’s had coffee.

As he makes their coffee, Artie tells Françoise he has always hated helping Vladek around the house – he was overbearing and critical of everything Artie did. Françoise asks whether Artie is going to help Vladek with the drainpipe, and Artie scoffs that he would “rather feel guilty.” He calls Vladek back, and learns that a neighbor named Frank has offered to help with the drainpipe. “At least somebody will help me,” Vladek says, in a jab at Artie.

About a week later, Artie arrives at Vladek’s house to find him sorting nails in the garage. Vladek refuses to make eye contact and seems extremely grim. He tells Artie to wait for him inside while he finishes sorting. In the house, Artie asks Mala the reason for Vladek’s mood –he describes Vladek as seeming “upset” and “depressed.” Mala reveals that Vladek has discovered a comic strip Artie published years earlier, about Anja’s suicide. The comic strip, called “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” was published in an obscure, underground magazine; Artie says he never imagined Vladek would read it. Mala tells him that she found the comic through a friend whose son was an avid reader of the genre, and that she hid the magazine from Vladek for years because she knew it would upset him to see what Artie had written.

Artie thumbs through “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” Unlike Maus, the comic depicts human faces rather than animal heads. Harsh lines and exaggerated features make those faces frightening and grotesque, and Artie appears wearing a prison jumpsuit in every panel. The comic describes Anja’s suicide and the days that followed. Vladek found her in the bathtub, Artie writes, with her wrists slashed and a bottle of pills nearby. She had not left a suicide note. Artie, then a very young man, had just been released from a state mental hospital. Friends of his parents, who would appear to comfort him over the following days, were hostile toward him even as they offered condolences – it was clear that many people blamed him for his mother’s death. He remembers his last conversation with Anja: how she came into his bedroom one night, and woke him from sleep to ask if he still loved her. Resentful of the manipulative question, he turned his back to her and grunted, “Sure, Ma!” in reply. The last panels of the comic show Artie in a prison cell, cursing his mother. By killing herself, he shouts, she has “murdered” him.

Mala tells Artie that the comic shocked her when she read it, but that it seemed “accurate” and “objective” – she remembers the days after Anja’s death, and agrees with Artie’s descriptions of that time. Vladek comes inside, and Artie brings up the comic, holding it out for Vladek to see. Vladek says he discovered the magazine while looking for Anja’s diaries. There is a photograph of Artie and Anja printed at the top of the first page, next to the title – this photograph caught his attention, he says, and the comic made him cry when he read it.

Artie apologizes for upsetting him, but Vladek says it was good for Artie to express his feelings. The comic brought up painful memories of Anja, he says – but, of course, he is always thinking of Anja anyway. Mala points out that Vladek’s desk is covered with photographs of Anja; she compares these, bitterly, to a shrine. Vladek asks whether she would have him throw the pictures away. Mala walks away grumbling.

Vladek and Artie go for a walk. Vladek resumes his story in 1943, when all the Jews who remain in Sosnowiec after the events at the stadium are relocated to the village of Srodula, a ghetto where they’re more cramped and restricted than ever before. Each day, they are marched into Sosnowiec to work in German shops: Anja and Tosha in a clothing factory, he and Lolek in a carpentry shop. By this time, the Germans have installed Jews as guards and police in the ghetto – they act just the same as the German soldiers, Vladek says.

One evening, Wolfe gets a visit from his uncle, Persis. Persis is the head of the Jewish Council in Zawiercie, a town some twenty-five miles from Sosnowiec. His position gives him some influence with the Germans in Zawiercie, and he wants to bring Wolfe, Tosha, and the three small children – Bibi, Lonia, and Richieu – home with him, so he can protect them. Mrs. Zylberberg protests, saying the family must fight to stay together, but she soon concedes that the children must go where they will be safe.

Vladek remembers the horrible violence that came to Srodula in the months after Persis took the children. During a roundup in which more than a thousand people –most of whom were children – were sent to Auschwitz, German soldiers beat crying toddlers to death in the streets, throwing them against brick walls with horrible force. Amidst all this violence, Vladek says, he and his family thanked God that their own children were safe in Zawiercie with Persis.

Artie asks what happened to Richieu after Persis took him to Zawiercie. Vladek explains: a few months after the family separated, the Germans decided to clear out Zawiercie. New soldiers – people who could not be bribed – were sent into the ghetto. They murdered Persis and other members of the Jewish Council, then ordered all Jews to present themselves for transport to Auschwitz. Tosha refused to allow herself – or her children – to die in the gas chambers. It was her habit to wear a vial of poison around her neck at all times, Vladek says, and when she found out that they were to be sent to Auschwitz, she immediately killed herself, Bibi, Lonia, and Richieu.

It was a long time before the family learned what had happened to Tosha and the children, Vladek says – but when they found out, it was the greatest of all the tragedies they had endured. He mentions staying in “bunkers,” and Artie stops him to ask what he means. Vladek explains that, in the months after the children moved to Zawiercie, Germans had begun to snatch people at random off the streets in Srodula. To avoid capture, he built a secret room in the Zylberbergs’ house, hidden behind a false wall in the coal cellar. He draws Artie a diagram of this bunker, telling him it is good to know exactly how such hiding spaces can be constructed, “just in case.”

In the summer of 1943, Vladek and the Zylberberg family move houses. He and Anja, Mr. and Mrs. Zylberberg, and Lolek are the only ones left. They build another bunker, this time in the attic. That summer, the Nazis evacuate the ghetto completely – more than ten thousand Jews are taken away in a single week. The family hides in their bunker, sneaking out at night to scavenge food. One night, another Jewish man discovers their hiding place. He insists that he means them no harm, and is only out looking for food. The family considers killing him to ensure that he doesn’t reveal their hiding spot, but they let him go. The same day, the man comes back with Nazi soldiers, who arrest the family and take them to a detention center to await transport to Auschwitz.

Vladek has two cousins working for the Germans: Jakov, who does manual labor, and Haskel, who is the chief of the Jewish police in Srodula. While awaiting transport to Auschwitz, Vladek spots Jakov and offers to pay him for help escaping the ghetto. Artie asks whether Jakov wouldn’t have helped Vladek without payment, since they were from the same family, but Vladek says the concept of family loyalty had broken down amidst the chaos of the ghettos – every person had to look out for himself.

Jakov brings Haskel to the detention center. Vladek bribes Haskel with a diamond ring. Haskel says he can get Vladek, Anja, and Lolek out of the ghetto, but that it will be too conspicuous if he tries to sneak out the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Zylberberg. Mr. Zylberberg is desperate to escape, and gives all his valuables to Vladek to use as bribes. Haskel takes the bribes, and begins to sneak the family, one by one, out of the detention center. In the end, though, he does not help Anja’s parents. The day the vans arrive to take the detained to Auschwitz, Vladek and Anja see Mr. Zylberberg at the window, crying. All his wealth has not been able to save his life. The Zylberbergs go directly to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

Vladek pauses in his story to pick up a piece of wire from the ground near a trash can. He pockets it, to Artie’s mild disgust, for use in household chores. He goes on with his story: after Haskel smuggles them out of the detention center, he takes them to a shoe shop where his brother, Miloch, is working. Haskel was a crook, Vladek tells Artie, but Miloch was a good man. The two of them had another brother, Pesach, who was a crook like Haskel – a member of the Jewish police. Vladek begins to work in the shop with Miloch, repairing German boots.

As he tells his part of the story, Vladek’s heart begins to cause him severe pain. He carries a nitroglycerin pill in his pocket, and swallows it immediately to help regulate his heartbeat. He sits on a stoop to catch his breath, and tells Artie that Miloch survived the war and moved to Australia with his wife. He reveals that Miloch died only recently, after years of heart trouble, when he was caught during a seizure without his nitroglycerin pills.

Vladek and Artie resume walking. Vladek describes the last months of 1943: the Germans are clearing out Srodula, and sending the few remaining Jews to Auschwitz in weekly transports. Miloch and Pesach build a bunker in the shoe shop (Haskel has made escape plans of his own) and invite Vladek, Anja, and Lolek to hide with them when the time comes. Lolek refuses to hide. He is fifteen years old, and is tired of living in bunkers. His skills as an electrician, he believes, will make him useful to the Nazis and help him survive wherever he goes. Anja weeps and begs him to reconsider, but Lolek refuses to enter the bunker. Soon after, he is taken to Auschwitz.

With Lolek gone, Anja becomes hysterical. They have recently heard the news about Richieu’s death – and the deaths of Anja’s sister, brother-in-law, and nieces –and with the loss of Lolek, her family is broken apart completely. Anja tells Vladek she wants to die, but Vladek begs her to keep struggling for life. He needs her, he says – together, they will survive.

Anja and Vladek hide in the bunker with several others. There is almost no food, and everyone is on the brink of starvation. Several of those hiding in the bunker try to escape by bribing the guards to look the other way while they walk out of the ghetto; the guards take their bribes, but shoot them as soon as they hand over the money. One man, Avram, says he will not leave the bunker until Vladek does –Vladek has good judgment, and Avram trusts that he will not leave the bunker until it is safe. Finally, after almost everyone in Srodula has been killed or deported, the Germans leave and the handful of people hiding in the bunker walk out of the ghetto. They part ways, all going in different directions. Vladek and Anja have nowhere to go, so they walk toward Sosnowiec.

Vladek and Artie have walked to the local bank. Vladek asks the teller – an American woman, with the head of a dog – to make Artie a key to his safe deposit box. The two go into the back room, to look through Vladek’s things. He wants Artie to have access to his valuables, Vladek says, because otherwise Mala will snatch them as soon as Vladek dies. Artie is uncomfortable talking about the prospect of his father’s death, but Vladek ignores his protests. He shows Artie a diamond ring, which Anja saved for him from the time he was very young, with the intention that it should be given to his wife one day.

Mala would be furious if Artie inherited the diamond ring, Vladek says – she is constantly badgering him to change his will and leave everything to her, with nothing for his one surviving brother (who lives in Israel) or for Artie. Vladek slumps over his safe deposit box and covers his head with his hands. He moans that he never should have remarried, then wails Anja’s name three times. Artie pats his father’s back, and tells him gently that they should go home.