Becoming a Maus

Danielle Taylor
History 133: World History
December 15, 2015

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In the face of death humans have varying reactions as they contemplate the actions they
are limited to. There are those that come to terms with it, those who run from it, and those who
plea for mercy. The Holocaust forced many Jews in the German territories to face the notion of
death based on their religious background, but the option that many choose was that of a mouse.
The Jews experienced three main stages during the Holocaust as the escalation of the mass
genocide reached a climax of certain death in the form of the concentration camps. However, at
each stage of the escalation the Jews watched before their eyes the prosecutions and cruelty of
fellow Jews and fled in the hope of saving their own lives. The various stages of the Holocaust
could have been prevented if the Jews adopted the notion of nonviolence that Gandhi preached,
but instead the Jews choose to run and hide which allowed for the German state to dehumanize
the Jews in order to carry out the Holocaust. At each stage of the holocaust the Jews acted in the
form of the rodent instead of taking a nonviolent stand that Gandhi claimed to be the key to all
peace.
When we look at the animals that are in our lives we can agree upon two main roles that
humans play in the lives of the animals; that of rationing and determining of their residence.
When we keep a pet we control every aspect of their lives by dictating how much they eat, what
toys they have, when they can go outside, where they will sleep, and their daily activities they
will participate in. In the first stage of the Holocaust the Jews allowed for these same limitations
to be put on their day to day lives by allowing this definition of dictation to be applied to them.
The Jews were rounded up and forced to reside in ghettos where they were cramped into small
living quarters,1 rationed on what items and foods they could purchase,2 and had to abide by a

1 Art Spiegelman, Maus I (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 82.

2 Ibid, 76.

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curfew set by the NAZIs.3 These new rules placed on the Jewish people in Germany dehumanized them by degrading their freedom to control their day to day activities. The NAZIs
were able to successfully remove a piece of what it means to be human by taking away this
freedom, because the Jews assumed this role with little resistance in the quest for their own
selfish greed of personal safety. Instead of rebelling against the new rules put on Jews, the Jews
watched as their fellow community members were hung for disobeying the new rules,4 as they
hung their head and bribed for their own individual safety.5 These are actions of an animal forced
into domestication not of a human with the capacity to stand up against atrocities. They should
have stood their ground when asked to leave their true residence, and adopted Gandhis nonviolence method in this phase of the Holocaust.
The Jews ran away from the violence of the NAZIs to resist confrontation and save their own
skin, but if they would have stood their ground the Jews would have halted the progression of the
Holocaust. Gandhi believed that to run from the sword to avoid violence is an action of cowards,
and a means of saving ones own life.6 Gandhi preached that if one were to stand before a sword
and sacrifice their own safety they would be able to appeal to the hearts of the aggressor.7
Meaning, if one were to make a stand for what is right in this world, the person inflicting the
violence would be forced to relate to their victims. The Jews should have made this unselfish
stand against the NAZIs from the beginning by refusing to leave their residence. If the Jews
3 Art Spiegelman, Maus I (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 65.
4 Ibid, 62.
5 Ibid, 91.
6 Ganhi, "Ahimsa, Satyagraha, and Swaraj," in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann (United
States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013), 227.
7 Ibid, 226-277.

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stood for their religion and the safety of their entire community not just the induvial, they would
have made themselves appear to be more a human deserving of basic rights. Instead, the Jews
fled like mice in the face of danger. This allowed for the NAZIs to defend their notion that the
Jews were the inferior race, and view them as sub human. By making a stand and demonstrating
that the Jews were people just the same as Germans, there could have conducted a resistance
movement of German soldiers like that of the Warsaw ghetto8, and convinced the soldered to
refuse the orders of the NAZIs to prosecute Jews. Non-violence would have been the means to
end the life in the ghettos if a mass movement of Jews adopted it, but the Jews continued to
adopt selfish reactions in the face of the progression of the Holocaust.
After it became apparent that the ghettos were nothing more than a holding area,9 many Jews
sought out a new road to safety: Burrowing. When one goes hunting for animals it is a common
fact that the animals will hide out of fear of the outcome of being found. It is an animal instinct
to protect oneself by making one unseen to others. The Jews did that of an animal by burrowing
themselves out of view of the NAZIs. The Jewish people separated and hid in make shift attics,
10

basements under coal,11 and even dumpsters.12 They did not stand up against the NAZIs and

instead acted as animals as they lowered their living standards. Rodents such as mice live in
dwellings of those that the Jews hid in during this phase of the Holocaust, and by doing so
8 Count Helmuth James von Moltke, "Conditions in Germamy and the Warshaw Guetto Uprising (July
9,1943) in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann (United States of America: Cognella, Inc,
2013), 337.
9 Ted Crowder, The Holocaust (presentation, History 133, Sacramento, CA, October 22, 2015).
10 Art Spiegelman, Maus I (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 112.
11 Ibid, 125.
12 Ibid, 153.

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lowered their appearance even more. The NAZIs sought out the Jews like they would a pesky
rodent, and thus was able to once again de humanize the Jews even more. If a person could live
in such conditions like that of a mouse, then he was nothing more than short of a mouse himself.
The Jews allowed for shameful tactics in order to protect themselves as individuals, and thus
were treated as such by those of their aggressors because they did not make a non-violent stand.
The phase of burrowing is seen as a last resort option to survive the prosecution of the NAZIs,
but this is just a justification to act cowardly. Burrowing that is justified as a way to avoid the
violence of ones aggressor is nothing more than an act of cowards to assure safety to ones
self.13 However, this tactic does nothing to stop the onset of the actions of the NAZIs, but rather
only changes the fate of the individual doing the burrowing. If the Jews would have not have hid
like animals and instead made a stand for the right of their people to live a normal life, the Jews
would not be classified in the same category mice. However, the Jews claimed the burrow
method as a last resort and sought out safety for themselves even if that meant the continued
prosecution of others not able to find shelter.14 The failure to make a stand against the NAZIs
allowed for Hitler to continue to blame the Jews for the German struggles,15 by labeling them sub
human based on their display of submissiveness that allowed them to be looked at as less than
that of a human. The continued removal of the Jews humanity appearance progressed the Jews to
the final stage of the Holocaust: the final solution.

13 Gandhi, "Ahimsa, Satyagraha, and Swaraj," in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann
(United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013), 226-277.
14 Art Spiegelman, Maus I (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 112.
15 Adolf Hitler, "My Political Testament," in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann (United
States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013), 345.

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The final solution lead the Jews to concentration camps where they were either gassed, starved or
burned to death.16 When they first arrived they were undressed and evaluated for those fit enough
to be put to work,17 and imprisoned in a fashion that would not sustain an average animal.18 The
Jews were treated like inferior animals that did not even deserve the basic necessities to sustain
life. This was made possible by the de humanization the NAZIs were able to do throughout the
previous stages that allowed them to not see humans suffering but instead rodents. The Jews
acted as such as they allowed themselves to abandon their humanity and do anything to increase
the chance of survival of the individual. This included the burning of their own people19 and the
construction of the gas chambers.20 These actions to allow the imprisonment and the condoning
of such barbaric actions are what created the view of Jews as being nothing more than a pesky
rodent in need of cleansing out of society.
The amount of killing that occurred in these camps represents a number that could have easily
overcome the guards, but the question remains: Why didnt they. The Jews were too afraid of the
outcome of themselves to see the bigger picture that thousands were being killed daily. The Jews
should have put their foot down in this stage of the Holocaust in order to stop the operation of
the concentration camps. This could have been done nonviolently by showing the guards that
they were just as human as they were, but not by violence instead by opening their heart and thus
16 Ted Crowder, The Holocaust (presentation, History 133, Sacramento, CA, October 22, 2015).
17 Art Spiegelman, Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1991), 27.
18 Ibid, 30.
19 Art Spiegelman, Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1991), 72.
20 Ibid, 73.

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their ears.21 The Jews would have been able to successfully stop the violence if they stood
together as humans, and not scrapped for survival like animals. The Jews should have abandoned
their selfish needs to better their own horrible situation, and instead embarrassed the atrocities to
demonstrate the cruelty the NAZIs were inflicting on HUMANS, not the image the NAZI party
had created to justify their actions.22 This image the Jews created of themselves allowed the
NAZIs to no longer associate Jews as humans, but rodents in need of the most efficient method
of extermination.23
In the face of death no one can really say what they would do: hide away like animals or stand
courageously and embrace the bits of humanity they may have left. Turning ones head away
from the atrocities that is occurring to ones community in order to save ones own skin is the
action of regressing back to their animal instinct rather than humanity. This route of running to
save ones skin was used as a justification to de humanize the Jews during the Holocaust.
Gandhis method of holding onto ones humanity and embracing a non-violent stand would have
created the unwillingness to carry out the orders of the NAZI party by the SS. This would be
possible by tearing down the view of Jews as inferior beings and allow them instead to be seen as
fellow HUMANS. If the Jewish community would have adopted this method as a whole the
progression of the Holocaust would have been halted long before it reached the climax of gas

21 Gandhi, "Ahimsa, Satyagraha, and Swaraj," in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann
(United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013), 228.
22 Count Helmuth James von Moltke, "Conditions in Germamy and the Warshaw Guetto Uprising (July
9,1943) in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann (United States of America: Cognella, Inc,
2013), 335.
23 Rudolf Hoess "Commandant of Auschwitz: Testimony at Nuremberg, 1946 in Twentieth Century
Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann (United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013), 342-343.

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chambers. However, this abandonment of humanity allowed the NAZI party to associate Jews
with mice/rats, and thus allowing something as horrible as a genocide to occur.

What a tremendously hostile world a rat must endure. Yet, not only
does he survive, he thrives. And the reason for this, is because our
little foe has an instinct for survival and preservation
Second to none. And that Monsieur, is what a Jew shares with a
rat.24
Work Cited
Crowder, Ted. The Holocaust. Presentation, History 133, Sacramento, CA, October 22, 2015.
Ganhi. "Ahimsa, Satyagraha, and Swaraj in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann.
United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013.
Hitler, Adolf. "My Political Testament," in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann.
United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013.
Hoess, Rudolf. "Commandant of Auschwitz: Testimony at Nuremberg, 1946 in Twentieth
Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann. United States of America: Cognella, Inc, 2013.
Moltke, Count Helmuth James. "Conditions in Germany and the Warshaw Guetto Uprising (July
9,1943) in Twentieth Century Voices, ed. Michael G. Vann. United States of America:
Cognella, Inc, 2013.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus I. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1991.
Tarantino, Quentin. Inglourious Basterds. Film, directed/performed by Quentin Taratino and Eli
Roth. 2009; The Weinstein Company.

24Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, Film, directed/performed by Quentin Taratino and Eli Roth
(2009;The Weinstein Company.), Scene 1.