Illustrated Germany

Name: Felipe Palma

Grade: 3L

Subject: English

Teacher: Carolina Bravo <3

Introduccion(context)
In this paperwork, I am going to analyze, try to explain, and conclude in the best way I can,
about the book Maus. But first I will explain some context:

The Nazism in Germany

Its an ideology that comes from the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, or in
German, the Nationalsozialismus, in the abbreviated form, ends up in Nazism.
Basically, the first or main objective of this ideology (who governed in 1933 to 1945) was
to rebuild Germany and got it out from the deep hole that her economy was, using the
hate and anger of the crowds of people, blaming to the Jews. Then, they were thinking
about more ambitious ideas, and started invading other territories. Therefore, this period
caused a lot of pain, and a lot to talk too. Nowadays there are still debates, and cultural
information. And so, this brings us to the main idea: The review of a comic-book Maus.

Development
This comic-book as you can tell, its a big metaphor about the Nazi period in Germany. It
narrates us the whole period, in the point of view of a Jew, or in the book, being a mouse,
against the Nazis who were cats.

The protagonist, Darek (the survivor) describes us the story through his son, (the one who
draws the comic) in a very particular way. The comic is written with a lot of details, not
only about the histories of Darek, but also, about how the book was written, how he start
a relation with his father, when he goes to ask him about the stories, being as realistic as
possible, like, adding some background stories, in a way that you could truly know, how
dad and son get along. The son even draws himself drawing.

The main objective of this comic is to show us, like I said previously, what the Jews had
gone through, in a way so expressive that you could almost felt being there. The daily
dialogues, the drawings of the comic make it really natural. The principles of the book
were very clear in the histories of Derek. About how he had to survive in prison, living at
the day, how he began to lost family members and relatives, how Jewish people begun to
look out after themselves, like when, to ensure safety, the same Jews began to attack
other Jews, and betrayed them. It began an era of do or die, where if you didnt manage
to get or even bribe someone, like the overseer for protection you would probably end up
as a slave or worse, dead. The illustrations are for emphasize the story, so we could
imagine it better, like the dead bodies hanging on a rope, the slaves working in the fields,
the concern of the families, the cellars, as a hiding place etc.

This pogrom was the same as in Chile, in both, the humans rights were violated, starting
the Witch Hunt, no one could do anything and all the power and decisions were
concentrated on a leader. The difference its that in Germany, this tense scenario was
gradually increasing, the Nazis once created, were growing more and more, as we can see,
in the beginning of the book, they werent that oppressive. In Chile, on the other hand,
everything began so suddenly and much less planned, where the army out of nowhere
ended up with the power with a coup dtat.

Anyway, both were horribly periods, where fear and obedience were present everyday,
changing the minds of the people, obligating them to support the cause, where killing was
a routine thing, violating the first and most important human right nowadays, the
freedom.

One example is the constant accusations, like, when an old woman sees a Jew on the
street, it began to scream and call to the police or the kids who were taught to fear Jews,
immediately accused Darek when they saw him. In Chile was a common thing, where
many people were arrested in the night, by some accusation of a neighbor, who had
heard a rumor.

Another one was the curfew in the afternoon, the constant vigilance on the part of the
police, where you better have some identification, or you will get in serious trouble, and
how the police abuse of their power, bothering the people in the street, and stealing
things.

And how the prisoners were treated, with no shelter, with lack of food, assigned them
really hard work, and without even bathrooms, all of this ended up in death by frostbite,
starve, desolation, etc. All the prisoners, being in a improvised and really controlled
prison, in this case, in El Estadio Nacional, were you couldnt know what other things
they do to them inside.
Conclusion
In respect to my opinion, I already had one before reading the comic, but now, it changed
a little. I wasnt totally aware of the pain, and the despair of the people who lived this
tragedy. Of course I have heard of it, but now, I have a better picture.

And my opinion is that, I dont totally disagree with Hitler, I mean, his methods werent
the optimal ones, but he managed to unify all the country, who was suffering a lot since
the first world war. He managed to lift Germany from the hole that United States and
other countries had left it. (Remember that, after the first war, Germany had to pay all the
cost of it, because of the Tratado de Versalles) He really wanted a better country, not
being subordinated to external powers.

He created better roads, the well-known car Volkswagen, a law that protects the animals,
and obviously he broke El Tratado de Versalles . I believe that to unifying and handling
big crowds of people, all of them confused, sad, and in misery, it is a very hard task. After
the fall of Hitler, the inflation stroked again, but with less strength than before, and
Germany was looking to a brighter future. If I could change history, I wouldnt change
anything, I believe, that the human race always will have to go through this kind of
periods, like for instance, if Hitler never existed, I can assure that another person sooner
or later, would had tried the same thing. Thats why we evolve, to learn, we first have to
make mistakes. If we havent had the Imperialism period for example, with black slaves
and stuff, we would never have the democracy that we have here today.

The most of the words that I didnt know, didnt have relation with the main topic, so I didnt
figure out how to fit them in my work. Here are the other words that I found:

The Sheik Bachelor Seamstress Shrine Cramp Blankets Chew Beck and Call Chilly
Stew Cottage Premises Schemes Tenants Dowry