Maus: Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

It is summer. Artie and Françoise are vacationing with friends in Vermont. Artie is doodling outside, trying to decide how to draw Françoise in his book. On his sketchpad, he tries out different animal heads: a moose, a poodle, a frog, a rabbit. Françoise is French, and he wants to find an animal that both represents her and seems compatible with that nation’s history of anti-Semitism. Françoise comes outside to sit beside him. When Artie tells her what he is working on, she insists that, if Artie is going to be a mouse, she should be a mouse too. Besides, she reminds him, she converted to Judaism when they got married, if only to please Vladek.

Artie and Françoise’s friends run out of the house in a panic. Vladek just called, one of them tells Artie –he had a heart attack, and needs Artie to call him back. The four of them hurry into the house, and Artie calls Vladek immediately. A one-sided conversation ensures. Artie looks shocked. When he hangs up, he reports that Vladek didn’t really have a heart attack; he made that up to ensure Artie would call him back. The real crisis, Artie tells them, is that Mala has left Vladek – taken money from their bank account and disappeared with their car. Vladek is spending the summer in a bungalow in the Catskill Mountains, and wants Artie and Françoise to come and stay with him.

Reluctantly, Artie and Françoise get into their car and head for the Catskills. As they drive, Artie begins to tell Françoise about his anxieties over his book. He knows it is presumptuous to believe he can create a clear, comprehensible narrative around something as intense as the Holocaust, when he barely understands something as simple as his own relationship with his father. He remembers how, as a child, he would imagine that the Nazis were about to take his parents to their deaths, and that he could only save one of them and had to choose which one of them would survive. (He usually chose Anja.)

Artie wonders aloud whether he and Richieu would get along, if Richieu had survived the war. Vladek and Anja always kept a photograph of Richieu in their bedroom, he says, and as he grew older, he came to feel a sense of competition with this photograph. He felt that he could never compare to Richieu in the eyes of his parents, because Richieu had died before ever doing anything to disappoint them. He survived in memory as a perfect child, while Artie was a real person who often fell short of expectations.

Artie remembers a few more details of his childhood obsession with the Holocaust: his nightmares about Nazi soldiers arriving in his classroom, about Zyklon B (the deadly chemical used in gas chambers) coming out of the shower. He tells Françoise that he wishes he had been in Auschwitz with his parents, so he could understand what they went through – that he feels guilty about having an easier life than they did. Trying to depict their suffering in his book, while knowing he has no way to understand it, makes him feel hopeless and inadequate.

It is late when Artie and Françoise arrive at Vladek’s bungalow in the Catskills. Vladek has been waiting up for them. He embraces Artie, and leads the two “kids” (Vladek calls them both “kids” and “darlings”) to the bedroom he has made up for them. He implies that Artie and Françoise will be spending the rest of the summer with him in the Catskills; Artie is quick to correct him, saying he and Françoise are only there for a few days. Vladek brushes off this comment and goes to bed, leaving Art and Françoise to speculate about his expectations.

The next morning, a little before 8 a.m., Vladek bursts into the bedroom where Françoise and Artie are sleeping. He opens the curtains and rouses Artie, who fumbles to get dressed as Vladek begins to list all the things on their agenda for the day. Artie makes coffee (Françoise has brought their coffee and pot in her bag) while Vladek tells him about the drama that led to Mala leaving. Back in Rego Park, they went to the bank together to renew some bonds Vladek had taken out. He intended to put one bond in trust for Mala, one for Artie, and one for Pinek, his brother who lives in Israel. Mala, who wanted Vladek to leave his whole estate to her, became furious and left Vladek at the bank. By the time he returned home, she had left – taking money, jewelry, and their car with her. Vladek says his lawyer has encouraged him to press charges.

Françoise appears in the kitchen, yawning. Artie lights a cigarette, and Vladek berates him for using a wood match. He gets free paper matches from a nearby hotel, he says, and saves the wood matches, which he has to buy himself, to light the bungalow’s oven. Artie, frustrated with Vladek’s tightfistedness, goes out for a walk. He meets Vladek’s neighbor, Mrs. Karp, who ushers him into her house to meet her husband, Edgar. The Karps are eager to know whether Artie will be taking Vladek to live with him, and distressed when Artie says he has no plans to do so. Mr. Karp badgers Artie, asking how a sick old man like Vladek can be expected to manage on his own. They have been looking after Vladek since Mala disappeared (a decision for which Mrs. Karp expresses sympathy) but insist that Vladek needs full-time attention.

Artie hears Françoise calling his name, and leaves Mr. and Mrs. Karp’s house as quickly as he can. Outside, Françoise tells him that being around Vladek makes her tense; he follows her around, straightening things as soon as she touches them. Artie says Vladek has always been uptight. Françoise wonders whether it is a product of his time in Auschwitz, but Artie points out that many people – including the Karps – lived through the Holocaust, and don’t share his neuroses. If these people have been altered by their time in the camps, they have been altered in different ways than Vladek.

Vladek appears in the yard outside the bungalow, and asks Artie to come inside and help him organize his bank papers. A few hours later (they have been “tense hours,” Artie notes) Vladek is haranguing Artie about a mistake in his calculations. Artie insists that the error is unimportant, which prompts Vladek to accuse him of laziness. Françoise urges Vladek and Artie to take a walk and let her fix the mistake.

As they walk, Artie asks Vladek what he plans to do now that Mala is gone. Vladek says he will go home when Artie and Françoise do – he has no reason to stay in the Catskills alone –and suggests that Artie might want to move into his house in Queens. To have Artie with him is “always a pleasure,” Vladek says. Very kindly, Artie tells Vladek that he and Françoise have their own home, and aren’t likely to move to Queens. Vladek insists that Artie doesn’t have to give him an answer right away.

Artie has brought his tape recorder on the walk, and asks Vladek whether they can talk about Auschwitz. He asks what happened after Vladek and Anja were separated upon first arriving. The men were sent to a big hall, Vladek says. Mandelbaum is still with him at this point. They are afraid, but a veteran prisoner tells them that the Nazis do not intend to kill them right away; they have come to the hall so they can be processed and put to work. The men are stripped naked and their heads are shaved. New clothing – striped prison uniforms – is distributed to all the new arrivals, without regard for size. Some prisoners receive clothes and shoes that do not fit at all, but guards punish anyone who tries to replace them. The prisoners then receive their serial number tattoos. Many of the people administrating the intake process (including one who beats another man for asking to replace his too-small shoes) are prisoners themselves – Poles and Jews wearing striped uniforms.

As they enter the camp, Vladek and Mandelbaum see Abraham, Mandelbaum’s nephew who wrote to say he was safe in Hungary. Abraham reveals that the Polish smugglers understood Yiddish, and so knew Vladek and Mandelbaum were waiting for a letter to confirm Abraham’s safe arrival. When he was arrested, the Gestapo held a gun to Abraham’s head and forced him to write the letter Mandelbaum received. Vladek tells Artie that he never saw Abraham after that day– he thinks Abraham “came out through the chimney,” gassed and cremated like so many others.

Throughout Vladek’s first day in Auschwitz, he hears the same thing again and again: that the only way out of the camp is through the chimney, dead. He sits in a room with other new prisoners, crying to himself. Most prisoners ignore him, but one man sits besides him. The man is not Jewish – in fact, he is a Polish priest – but he is knowledgeable about Jewish numerology, and when he inspects the serial number tattooed on Vladek’s arm, he points out that many of the numbers are good omens in the Jewish tradition. When added together, the six digits in Vladek’s serial number make 18, “the Hebrew number of life.” The priest tells Vladek that, though he cannot predict his own fate, he feels sure Vladek will survive the horror of the camps. Their conversation gives Vladek new hope and courage. Though he never saw the priest again, Vladek remembered their conversation and drew strength from it whenever things were especially bad.

Vladek struggles in the camp, but things are even more difficult for Mandelbaum. His clothes are far too big for him, so he must always hold up his pants with one hand. One of his shoes is too small for his feet, so he walks through the snow with one bare foot, always holding his shoe in case he finds someone who will exchange it with him. He fumbles through his days in the camp, overwhelmed by the frustration and hardship these two problems create. One day, he drops his spoon – each prisoner is issued only one – and another person snatches it.

Vladek and Mandelbaum live in an overcrowded barrack under the supervision of a kapo: a prisoner who has been designated as a camp administrator by the Nazi guards. The kapo in charge of Vladek’s barrack is a cruel man, who forces the prisoners to participate in exhausting physical exercises and beats anyone who does not comply. One day, this kapo asks all prisoners who speak both English and Polish to come to the front of the room. He is trying to learn English, and wants a teacher. Of the hundreds in their barrack, only a few – including Vladek – come forward. Vladek’s English is better than most, and the kapo chooses him as a tutor.

The next day, while other prisoners are made to clean the barrack, the kapo takes Vladek into a private room for an English lesson. In the room is a lavish spread of food – rolls, coffee, sausage, eggs. It has been ages since Vladek has seen so much food. The kapo invites him to each as much as he wants. After their lesson, he takes Vladek to the room where shoes and clothing are kept, and invites him to choose clothes and shoes that fit him better. When Vladek explains Mandelbaum’s situation – his too-big pants and too-small shoes – the kapo lets him take a belt and a new pair of shoes for his friend, as well as a spoon to replace the one Mandelbaum had stolen from him. When Vladek brings these things to Mandelbaum, he is so happy that he throws his arms around Vladek and weeps.

Vladek tries to use his influence with the kapo to keep Mandelbaum safe. Eventually, though, the Nazis take Mandelbaum away for a work detail. Vladek does not know what happened to his friend –he may have been shot by a guard, or beaten to death for working too slowly, or he may have collapsed from starvation or disease –but he does not see Mandelbaum again, and knows he must have died in the camp.

Vladek remains under the kapo’s protection for more than two months, with better living conditions than most other prisoners. After several weeks, though, the kapo realizes he will have to send Vladek out into the camp as a worker – he can no longer keep him in the barrack all day. He is happy to learn about Vladek’s work in the tin shop in Sosnowiec; skilled workers are treated better than common laborers, and the Nazis need good tinsmiths. He tells Vladek he will try to get him a job in the camp’s tin shop.

Vladek and Artie come to a hotel called The Pines. There is a “No Trespassing” sign, but Vladek sneaks them around the back to sit on the patio. He tells Artie that he often comes to The Pines to play bingo, take dancing lessons, and use their gym – pretending all the time to be a guest. He remembers one occasion when he won a bingo game: prizes were delivered to the winner’s room, but since he had no room number, he gave his card to the woman sitting next to him to make her happy.