MAUS Major Polonophobic Memes Spiegelman

The Complete Maus
(Maus #1-2), by Art Spiegelman. 2003

Distorts Basic Facts As Part of Its Pro-Jewish, Anti-Polish Narrative. Is Predictably Silent About Jews Killing Poles

This highly regarded cartoon series has been widely used in the classroom, where only the highest standards of factuality should prevail, especially when one is dealing with generally-unsuspecting readers. For this reason, the way it departs from historical fact is particularly objectionable. While some readers of this review may not welcome this information, it needs to be told.

HOLOCAUST? YES, BUT DON’T FORGET THE POLOKAUST

The portrayal of Poles as well-fed pigs is offensively false. Fact is, the Germans murdered millions of Poles, and the remaining Poles suffered greatly. There is hardly a single family in German-occupied Poland that did not lose at least one loved one to the German genocidal machine. The Germans murdered half of all educated Poles, and destroyed the majority of Polish books and other printed matter.

MIXING POLES WITH NAZI GERMAN KILLERS

The portrayal of a Pole saying “Heil Hitler!” (p. 151) is particularly egregious. Virtually no ethnic Pole would do such a thing.

SO POLES WERE A HORRIBLE PEOPLE

Spiegelman (p. 151) portrays a Polish mother warning her children that the Jews will get them, take them away, and eat them. He fails to provide proper context for the reader. Fact is, such tales were common, and were directed not only against Jews. For instance, Jews told their children tales about Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) stealing Jewish children and raising them as slaves. See the Peczkis review of The Janowska Road.

POLES KILLED JEWS. WOW. DID YOU KNOW THAT JEWS ALSO KILLED POLES?

Other matters, not part of the German-made Holocaust itself, are also presented by Spiegelman in a one-sided, contextual vacuum. For instance, he devotes two pages (pp. 291-292) to Poles killing Jews, after the war, over property disputes. He does not tell the unsuspecting reader that far less than 1% of returning Jews met this fate, and that the vast majority of returning Jews uneventfully reclaimed their properties. He does not tell the reader that there was a desperate housing situation in Poland, caused by the war and occupation, greatly aggravating rivalries over properties.

Finally, Spiegelman conveniently fails to tell the reader that there was a civil war going on in Poland at the time (caused by the impending Soviet imposition of a Communist puppet state) that placed Jews on the opposite side of Poles. Jews sometimes killed Poles just as Poles sometimes killed Jews. For instance, see INTERMARIUM by Chodakiewicz.