Week 7: Maus

For this week's reading, it was honestly kind of rough to get through only because of the subject matter and how heavy it was at times and it was the same for the film we watched in class. Personally when I read if the writing/visuals are good then I can feel what the characters I'm reading about are or might have been feeling. Since both the reading and film were very raw and straight forward it hit me kind of hard in some moments to see the effect of tragedies on some characters.

            I had previously read Maus in high school so it was like a refresher on the graphic novel and that way I kind of already knew what was coming so it didn’t have that shock factor that I had the first time around reading it. Even though I wasn’t shocked at what happened it still hit hard because I am well aware that the events from the novel actually happened and that they effected so many people and how much suffering some people had to go through. 

My grandma on my dad’s side was actually born and raised in Germany and was like a teenager in Germany when the holocaust was happening. I never really got the chance to talk to her about it before she passed away because I was very young at the time and had no idea how important the event was in history. My dad ended up finding this whole book about it that my grandma had and it was just surreal to see it when I was older and knew what it all meant. I can only imagine how scary it was during that time especially being in the same place it was all happening in. 

In regards to the film we had watched in class since I had never seen it before it was very impactful. I think it also was harder because there was movement and sound to it. I’m not going to lie I may or may not have cried a little at some points like when they had to leave the dad, sister, and little brother stuck under the beams of the house in the fire. That was a rough one and then again when the other little boy showed up looking exactly like Gen’s dead little brother and then to freaking top it all off when the boys finally came back with all that milk and the baby had just died all of those really got me feeling real sad. It’s even worse to think that it actually happened and people had that experience and it’s not just a little animated film that it was real life…

All in all, both stories were so incredibly moving for me personally and they were both handled very well and were real, raw, and shocking to anyone reading or viewing them so in that aspect the creators did a great job without trying to sugarcoat serious events in history. I think they made the biggest impact in comparison to what you read in textbooks because in those it’s emotionless and kind of robotic in a way. In textbooks it’s just like here have some facts and that’s all but when it comes to these pieces they’re full of emotion and actually put you in someone else’s shoes to some extent and show how these horrific events really effected actual human beings who didn’t deserve to be treated the way that they were.