I must say that I find this work hard to properly describe in terms of how I feel about it. I think that it was a fascinating look at one man's experience in the Holocaust, but an equally important aspect is Art's interaction with his father during their conversations. This seems like an honest portrayal, especially since Art isn't afraid to include things that may make himself or his father look bad (he isn't always the most sympathetic son, at times a narrow-minded father). I think connecting the story of what happened then, and how it's effects are apparent for the rest of a person's life (although different people reacted in different ways) is interesting. The way this is written is especially effective, because it truly feels like Vladek is telling you his story first hand.
As for the artwork, although it isn't my favorite style, it seems to fit for this story. The simple, unpolished look is compatible with this story which is honest and raw. Finally, I would like to add that the second installment of this comic is darker, and more depressing and sad at times, but it is also quite powerful and once you read Maus I, you must (and will want to) read Maus II in order to feel any closure with the story.

I must say that I find this work hard to properly describe in terms of how I feel about it. I think that it was a fascinating look at one man's experience in the Holocaust, but an equally important aspect is Art's interaction with his father during their conversations. This seems like an honest portrayal, especially since Art isn't afraid to include things that may make himself or his father look bad (he isn't always the most sympathetic son, at times a narrow-minded father). I think connecting the story of what happened then, and how it's effects are apparent for the rest of a person's life (although different people reacted in different ways) is interesting. The way this is written is especially effective, because it truly feels like Vladek is telling you his story first hand.
As for the artwork, although it isn't my favorite style, it seems to fit for this story. The simple, unpolished look is compatible with this story which is honest and raw. Finally, I would like to add that the second installment of this comic is darker, and more depressing and sad at times, but it is also quite powerful and once you read Maus I, you must (and will want to) read Maus II in order to feel any closure with the story.

One (two actually since there are two volumes) of the best submissions about the Holocaust which is designed to reach a broad audience. Maus and Maus II are written in the vernacular, personalizing the experiences of a camp survivor who is interviewed by his son. Excellent supplement to any Holocaust discussion.

When I included this and Maus 1 & Persepolis I was informed that they are not graphic novels and that I could not have one free. AMAZING! Of course after I asked for the distric manager's name/number there was a sudden change of heart BUT NOT a good instore experience from BORDERS at ALL. The GRAPHIC NOVEL is great. Borders are not.

In Maus II, Art Spiegelman continues his father's horrific story of persecution and imprisonment in Auschwitz during WWII. Mr. Spiegelman has an enviable talent for simple drawings that convey complex ideas and feelings. Scenes with his father seem all too real - both amusing and a bit sad. Great series, I'd recommend it to anyone.

At first glance, Maus might seem like yet another attempt to spin the genocide of the Jewish people into something demeaning. I have seen people turn and walk away from the selection because of that, and when I suggested this as required reading in a class it was initially met with hostile responses. Looking into the reading changed the way people saw the thing being constructed here, however, and by the time the class had finished they felt like I did about the book because they were more than taken. They were moved and then some.

Far from words like "stereotyping," Maus tells a story that people see as disarming at first by casting the Nazis as cats and the Jewish people as mice. This makes it seem like it is approachable in ways that humanity isn't, and it also brings about a medium that people of all ages can understand. While it might be painful for someone really young to read it can still be read by kids, and the story doesn't look like a history book at first glance so the "what" and the "why" can be seen with fresh eyes. This leads to being able to take in the characters for what they are; individuals with individual lives and not vast amounts of statistics that lost the ability to live because of a word like "holocaust" or "Nazi." To me that is one of the most important things that the book does because, amidst it all, we can see reflections of people we know. The book takes the time to painstakingly make sure we never lose sight of that; unlike other books it neither glorifies the terrible nor does it make the miniscule mundane. Here, everything matters and the results hurt. The first book take a lot of tie exploring this and the second book, here, furthers that by picking up the pieces and showing you what happens when suffering continues to dig its claws into the fabric of lives.
It works well at what it does and then some and makes me happy I could introduce both portions to people that would otherwise miss out on it.
This collection of two actually found my face streaked with tears and the conversations we had about the read garnered much of the same response.

Much can be said about Spiegelman's work and how the characterizations are explored but the reality of the book is that it takes a hard-to-approach subject and shows it to everyone willing to explore. This means that a society hardened to the plight of something that seems so far removed can feel the pulse of something too monstrous for description.
I highly recommend and utterly respect both volumes of this work and cannot give it enough praise.

Spiegelman continues the story of his father's life, through Auschwitz and afterwards, and his feelings about what has happened to him.

The story is told using animal forms for the people within, different classes of people are represented as different animals. Mice, obviously are used to represent the prisoners.

Haunting, you'll find certain parts that keep coming back to you. Don't let the artwork fool you, this is no children's book. This work is honest, and perhaps because of it, is very emotionally affecting. I've had to read it more than once to really appreciate it.

I was compelled to read this after finishing Art Spiegelman's astonishingly brilliant "Maus," a graphic novel retelling his father, Vladek's, experiences as a Jew in Poland during WWII. This sequel picks up right where the first left off, with Vladek's separation from wife, Anja, after arriving at Auschwitz. There Vladek must struggle to survive starvation and disease as well as the guards and the ovens, all while trying to get news of his wife from over in Auschwitz's second camp, Birkenau. His horrific time there is expertly rendered as Spiegelman manages to get across a complex range of emotions through his illustrations and words. Even after Auschwitz is abandoned and the Nazi soldiers go on the run, Vladek must still struggle to survive and make his way to safety. His journey home to his wife (from Auschwitz to an abandoned German landscape, through ruined cities and, finally, back to the now unrecognizable city he once called home) is utterly compelling, unforgettable stuff.

Equally compelling is the story of Vladek in later years that is mixed in with his history in both volumes of "Maus", after he has come to America with Anja, had another son (the first, Richieu, did not survive the war), lost Anja to suicide in 1968, remarried, developed a heart condition and a strained relationship with his surviving son, and begins telling his story to 'Artie', who is interested in adapting his father's tale into a comic book). In the WWII segments Spiegelman captures the horrors that took place during that tragic time, and in these father-son moments he explores how surviving an event like that leaves a mark on you forever, and can even pass on the burden of survivor's guilt to a new generation that wasn't even alive when the atrocities took place. Surprisingly, it is during these deeply personal moments that the "Maus" books really hit home the hardest. Spiegelman does a masterful job getting across the complex personalities of his characters and how the past has left a wide, seemingly impassable gulf between him and his father. Really, it is just a beautiful portrait of their relationship and I cannot recommend it enough. Spiegelman's delicate, earnest elegy to his father -- and to all survivors and victims of the Holocaust alike -- is a true triumph of literature and a heartbreaking look at one of history's greatest tragedies.

This conclusion of Maus 1 is the conclusion of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman's story and of the father-son relationship explored throughout the work.

This book tells the story of Vladek's time in Aushwitz, the liberation of the camps and the rebuilding of a new life. There is a lot more in Maus 2 about the relationships and mental trauma of a Holocaust survivor. It's really very moving.

Maus 2 is the second testament to Speigelman's brilliance as a story-teller and artist, Maus 1 being the first. His understanding of the depth of history and how it effects our lives is impressive.

This conclusion of Maus 1 is the conclusion of Vladek's story and of Artie's relationship with his father.

The fact that his father's time in Aushwitz is told in step with his physical decline in real time should not be lost on us. Valdek's started as a strong, vibrant story teller and has now disinegrated into a confused old man. The same degeneration was taking place amongst the Jewish people during WW2.

Maus 2 is the second testament to Speigelman's brilliance as a story-teller and artist, Maus 1 being the first. His understanding of the depth of history and how it effects our lives is impressive.

I first read Maus II when I was in fourth or fifth grade, but, of course, I didn't really grasp the true horror of it all at the time. I decided to buy a copy a couple of months ago and see if it lived up to my memory, and I was not disappointed. Now that I'm nine or ten years older and more attuned to the world and its history, it's that much more poignant. The insanity of the time period is hard to comprehend, but even in a cartoon, Spiegelman is able to give us some small idea of the reality.

I definitely recommend this book to everyone. Even if (like me) you're not a fan of graphic novels, this is still worth the read.

In the two volumes of "Maus," Art Spiegelman has captured the essence of the Holocaust. He focuses his tale on his own family's tragic history, using the strangely-appropriate medium of comic book drawing. Maus II tells the Spiegelman family story from confinement in Auschwitz to the harrowing days at the end of the war through liberation and establishment in America.

Art is a tortured son of a tortured family. Mother and father lived through the Holocaust on their wits and good luck. Now that the war is over, they continue to live haunted lives, never free of the fear and mass murder that enveloped their youth. Art, their American artist child, just barely tolerates his father's obsessiveness and extreme miserliness. The father, while starving in Auschwitz, saved half of his morning rations for trading for shoes or clothes. Now that he is old, he continues to play every nook and cranny of the system in order to save a wooden match or to cadge a free bingo game. The sense of the man's weirdness (and his son's resulting lack of patience) is palpably sad and funny at the same time.

Spiegelman's art is deceptively innocuous, using a black and white comic book style. His tale alternates between the present story of his elderly, pill-counting father in the present and the past story of ghettos, cruelty and death camps. Spiegelman draws his humans with animals heads -- an ingenious way to portray ethnic and cultural differences that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. Jews are rendered as mouse-headed humans, Poles with pig heads and Nazis topped with heads of predacious cats.

Spiegelman's tale is part history, part expiation of guilt for resenting a brother killed during the war and part rage at a family member's suicide. The war never ended for those who endured it, and ripples through time to damage the next generations. That's pretty heavy for a comic book, but Art Spiegelman pulls it off brilliantly.

I am combining volumes one and two. Volume one is great and it is no wonder it won a Pulitzer Prize. Even if you are not fond of comics or graphic novels, if you are at all interested in history (or WW2 specifically), you should try this. I enjoyed it enough that I bought both for my mother-in-law, who likes reading non-fiction historical accounts.

The brilliant continuation of the MAUS story, I think I enjoyed the second part even more than the first. It's in this book that Spiegelman really brings out the connection between what happened then in Europe and what is happening now in America.

This is a more interesting part of the story from a character standpoint. The relationship between Art and his father Vladek is painted in its most frustrating and endearing tones in this volume. An amazing piece of historical fiction, and even better feat of interpersonal storytelling.

There is only one problem with Holocaust movies and books such as Schindler's List, The Pianist, and Night: there are a lot of them. They tell these grim, heartbreaking stories which we ought never forget, lest we repeat them, but I fear that the overload of Holocaust images sometimes does the opposite. There is so much that they almost take on a marked unreality. We can almost become numb to them.

Then, there comes Maus, with the same type of horrors, the same type of events, but it manages to break through that numbness. The visual images are somewhat problematic, but I think it almost serves to make them more compelling, helping the bare emotion come screaming off the page. The modern relationship with Vladek and Art adds to the immediacy and modern relavence of the story also.

Maus is a powerful read and one which is essential for anyone studying the Holocaust.

I strongly recommend reading the first Maus before starting this book. In this book, the author's relationship with his father is explored further, and we get to see how his father survived the Holocaust. The horrors this one man went through make it seem unbelievable that he is alive to tell his story. The theme of Art's struggle of accepting his religion is also explored as a sub-theme. The illustrations are also much more detailed than a first thought, so make sure you take a good look at them.

Summary:
Art (Artie) Spiegelman is a cartoonist and the son of holocaust survivors Vladek and Anna Spiegelman. Art decided to tell his parents' story in graphic novel (comic book) form. The first book, Maus, covers the meeting and marriage of Vladek and Anna and follows their story up until they enter Auschwitz during WWII.

This book follows their story from when they enter the camp until they are finally freed by the Russians. This part of the story is also related in pieces as Art visits his father. Vladek was surprisingly resourceful as a camp prisoner and was continuously able to find positions where he was needed, helping keep him alive. Anna, on the other hand, wasn't always so lucky but she managed to stay alive. For both of them, much of what kept them alive was the hope of seeing the other person, which Vladek was amazingly able to arrange despite the men and women living in separate camps.

Eventually the war ends and they return, separately, to their hometown in Poland, though they have no knowledge of whether or not the other is alive. Thus, when Vladek, who arrives last, finally makes it home, it makes for a touching reunion.

My Comments:
This second book is definitely more touching than the first, though this is probably in large part due to the suffering the Spiegelman's experienced. This book also does a good job of bringing the story closure, though it took quite a while for this book to be published after the first one was.

Once again, the author is critical of himself by illustrating a rocky relationship with his father rather than everything being rosy. This self-criticism leads to my final point. I think the allure of these two books is that the author doesn't try to dress things up in a pretty package. He does his best to present things as they actually were (at least, as they were seen by his father). The result is that you see things like children having their heads bashed in by Nazi's slamming them against walls and a son who only grudgingly helps his father but at the same time uses him for his story (that sounds a bit harsh as I'm sure the son was inspired to tell the story just to share it, but he also made money off of it, so he did use him in a sense).

As I did with the first, I would recommend this book. Keep in mind that the book makes no pretense to be an objective treatise on the holocaust - this is a survivor's tale and it is at the subjective, individual level of one person who made it through. It is compelling and hopefully a warning for future generations about the potential maliciousness humans are capable of forcing on other humans.

Virginia says:
The Maus series is unique in that it tells one man's story of surviving the Holocaust, while also giving the reader a glimpse of how the survivor's life has been affected by the experience. This volume is the second part of the series, and while excellent, I was not as emotionally moved by it as the first part, which had me crying my eyes out. This volume seemed to devote more pages to Art and Vladek's relationship than to Vladek's story.

The second part of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus picks up where the first part left off. His father Vladek and mother Anja are captured and sent to Auschwitz. However, things aren't well at home. Mala, Vladek's second wife, exasparated at Vladek's tight-fisted controlling ways, leaves him. Artie and his wife Francoise rush over to help him out and during this time, Artie continues the interviews with his father and thence into Maus II.

The path of Artie understanding his father is smoother but at a cost. Following the success of Maus I, Spiegelman depicts a pile of dead Jewish bodies lying under the Artie's writing desk symbolizing how much the history his father has bled from that first volume has seeped into him. He is beginning to understand, but at the cost of emotionally and vicariously going through his father's experiences, for which he has sessions with Pavel, a Czech Jew psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.

Artie gets more perspective during these sessions with Pavel. He tells Pavel that as a child, he constantly argued with his father, who said that anything he did was nothing compared to surviving Auschwitz. Pavel refers to the psychological concept of transference: "Maybe your father needed to show that he was always right--that he could always SURVIVE-because he felt GUILTY about surviving. ... and he took his guilt on YOU, where it was safe... on the REAL survivor." The argument stands to reason. Vladek survived the death of so much family and friends, as well as the millions he never knew.

We learn more of how Vladek survived Auschwitz. He teaches English to the Polish kapo, who expecting the Germans to lose the war, wants to get in good graces with the Americans. Vladek is thus given better food, a better fitting uniform, and the tip to stand at the far left of the line of prisoners during the labour call. Improved health increased chances of survival and a better mental state.

Vladek has enough chutzpah in his tight-fisted but survivalist ways to exchange used groceries for new ones(!) While in the car waiting for him, Artie and Francoise discuss Vladek. Francoise says: "I'd rather kill myself than live through ... everything Vladek went through. It's a miracle he survived." Artie responds with "In some ways he didn't survive," which is key to the book's theme. Yet drastic saving is one way Vladek survived the war and camps. On the way back from the grocery store, we discover Vladek's racism towards blacks, an example of the victim becoming a victimizer.

Maus is a must-read for a personal instead of abstract, statistical look at the Holocaust. It also brings up post-war genocide. Pavel's contention that people haven't changed rings poignantly. Despite the vow of "never again," genocide has repeatedly happened "yet again": e.g. the Cultural Revolution, the killing fields in Cambodia, the massacre in Rwanda, and the ethnic bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia. Perhaps for racial harmony to become a human instinct, all people need to feel the same way, but the relativistic world of the twentieth and twenty-first century to makes that dream virtually impossible. Pavel's statement that a newer and bigger Holocaust is needed to change people grimly prophesizes World War III, meaning that unless we change, we will all die.

This continuation of Vladek's holocaust experience is as informative and enjoying a read as the first installation. The author's ability to convey such a dreadful tale through the levity of a comic strip makes the story easily accessible and quite memorable. Worthy of its Pulitzer recognition and a definite recommended read.