Maus: Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

It is winter. Artie is listening to the recordings of his interviews with Vladek – to the part of the story when Tosha poisons herself, Richieu, and the other children –when Françoise comes in to offer him a cup of coffee. Artie remarks on his frustration with the fact that Vladek left to spend the winter in Florida before they could finish their interviews. They have not heard from him since he left. Artie asks, a little helplessly, how he is supposed to take care of Vladek, since he and Françoise cannot and will not move to Rego Park. Françoise asks whether Vladek could move into their apartment. Artie instantly dismisses the idea. Françoise becomes annoyed. Artie complains that she is making him feel guilty, and she leaves the room in a huff.

Artie goes back to his recordings, but the phone rings as soon as he turns on the tape player. It is Mala. She and Vladek have been living together in Florida, she tells him, and Vladek has been spending an unsettling amount of time in the hospital. Though he instructed her not to worry Artie, he has just been admitted to the hospital for the third time in a month because of water in his lungs, and Mala fears the situation is serious. As they talk, Vladek appears in the room with Mala – he has checked himself out of the hospital against the advice of his doctors. He wants to return to New York, he tells her, so he can be near Artie in case something happens. Mala begs Artie to come to Florida and help her.

Artie arrives in Florida to find Vladek has exhausted himself with packing. While Vladek rests in bed, Artie asks Mala about their apparent reconciliation. She got a call from the hospital and went to visit him, Mala says. Though she swore she’d never see Vladek again, he somehow talked her into coming back. Mala is obviously unhappy with the situation, but says she feels trapped – Vladek is so sick and dependent, she cannot bring herself to leave him alone.

The next morning, before catching their flight back to New York, Vladek and Artie sit outside Vladek’s Florida condo and watch planes leaving the nearby airport. Spotting a tiny airplane in the sky, Vladek tells Artie that it was a plane very like that one that took him from Poland to Sweden in 1946, after the war had ended. There was nothing left for him and Anja in Poland, but the Americans had imposed quotas for refugees, and it was impossible to immigrate directly to the United States. Herman – Anja’s only surviving sibling, who had been visiting New York with his wife when the war broke out and was still living in the United States after it ended – helped them organize visas to immigrate to Sweden while they waiting for a chance to move to the United States.

In Sweden, Vladek works as a manual laborer, as do most other refugees. Eager to make a better living, he visits a department store – one whose owner has already assured him that there are no jobs available in sales – and asks for a chance to prove himself as a salesman. The store’s owner tasks Vladek with selling out their inventory of knee-length stocking, which have gone out of fashion and have been impossible to sell. When Vladek manages to sell the entire stock, the owner hires him. Eventually, Vladek becomes a partner in the business. He and Anja are well off in Sweden, and he is sorry to leave when their American visas come through.

After a long, problem-plagued flight from Florida, Vladek, Artie, and Mala arrive at the airport in New York. Françoise takes Mala home, while Artie takes Vladek to the hospital. The doctors run extensive tests to check Vladek’s heart and the water in his lungs, then after several hours release him into Artie’s care.

About a month after returning from Florida, Artie goes to Queens to visit Vladek. Upon arriving, he learns from Mala that they are planning to sell the house and move full-time to Florida. Artie is surprised that Vladek would agree to such a thing, but Mala tells him Vladek has been “listless” since returning from Florida – less adamant about having things his way.

Vladek is resting in bed. The photograph of Richieu hangs on the wall above the dresser. Artie comes into the room and sits beside his father. Vladek is pleased to see Artie, but surprised –he has forgotten about their phone conversation the day before, when Artie said he would be visiting. Artie has his tape recorder. If Vladek feels well enough, he says, they can tape the end of his story.

At the end of the war, there are enormous numbers of refugees. Vladek and Shivek, who are still living with the American troops on the abandoned farm where they waited out the end of the war, receive orders to move to a displaced persons camp in another part of Germany. Life in the displaced persons camp is easy and peaceful, but some time after arriving, Vladek suffers a relapse of typhus. American doctors treat him, but warn him that something else is wrong. Vladek will later learn that he has developed diabetes.

Vladek and Shivek leave the displaced persons camp to visit the German town of Hannover, where Shivek’s brother lives with his wife, a German woman who hid him throughout the war. Their children have their father’s mouse ears and their mother’s cat stripes. Shivek’s sister-in-law asks Vladek whether he has been able to find any of his own family. Vladek has been searching for news of Anja, but assumes she has died – she was so thin and weak in Auschwitz, he tells the German woman, that it seems impossible she should have survived the evacuation.

Shivek’s sister-in-law recommends Vladek visit the displaced persons camp in Belsen, a nearby town. In the camp, Vladek meets two women from Sosnowiec, Jenny and Sonia. Conditions in Sosnowiec are still miserable and dangerous for Jews, the women report. They tell Vladek the story of one Jewish man, Mr. Gelber, who tried to reclaim his family’s bakery. The bakery had been taken over by Poles, and when he arrived they beat him and hanged him in the barn behind his family’s house.

Vladek asks whether the women have heard any news of Anja. He is amazed to learn that she is alive and living in Sosnowiec. The Poles leave her alone, since she never tried to reclaim her family’s property, and she visits the local Jewish organization every day hoping to hear news of Vladek. After their reunion, Vladek says, he would learn that Anja visited a Roma fortuneteller during this time, to ask about her future – a superstitious but comforting exercise. The Roma woman promised Anja that her husband, though he had been very ill, was alive and coming home to her, and that she would have a new life and a second son in a faraway country.

As soon as he learns Anja is alive, Vladek sends her a letter promising to return home immediately. In this letter, he includes a photograph of himself wearing a concentration camp uniform. In his travels through Germany, he tells Artie, he once came across a place that had a clean camp uniform, which people could wear for “souvenir photos.” Anja kept the photograph for the rest of her life, Vladek says. He tells Artie that he still has the photograph in his desk, and Artie runs immediately into the den to find it.

Vladek trades his belongings to buy gifts for Anja: dresses and a fur coat. Shivek decides to return to Poland with him, but they become separated early in the journey. Vladek travels alone for three or four weeks before arriving in Sosnowiec. He arrives in the offices of the local Jewish organization, and someone rushes out to find Anja. The two of them are reunited, amidst a flood of tears and joyful embraces. After that, Vladek says, that is nothing more to tell: he and Anja were very happy, and they lived “happy, happy ever after.”

Vladek is reclining in bed. He asks Artie to stop the tape recorder, and rolls over onto his side as though preparing to go to sleep. “I’m tired from talking, Richieu,” he says, “and it’s enough stories for now.”

The final image of the book is that of a headstone. The surname “Spiegelman” is engraved at the top, along with a Star of David. Beneath it, side by side, are the names “Vladek” and “Anja,” along with the dates of their respective births and deaths. An eternal flame – a lamp designed to burn day and night without going out –sits at the base of the headstone. Just beneath the image is Artie’s signature and the dates on which he began and completed Maus: 1978-1991.