Thursday, March 23, 2017
Extra Reading Response: Retroactive Reflection
To end our study of Holocaust-era literature, for this extra reading response (which I will count towards the first half of the semester if you still need one), please write about at least two texts from the first half of the course, explaining one thing that reading them together has taught you. Focus on making connections: what themes have recurred? Where have you been reminded of storylines in other texts? How has your learning about this period been enhanced by having multiple perspectives? Make sure to choose one focused idea to tie your two texts together, and show us how they inform one another. This response is due by class time on Tuesday, March 28.
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I thought it was very fascinating to read about the two different perspectives from the memoir of Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, and a graphic novel told through the son of a Holocaust survivor, in the graphic novel Maus.
ReplyDeleteReading both of these texts have taught me how survivors have different ways of moving forward and coping after all the trauma they have experienced. The characters of Corrie, and Vladek are very different.
Corrie ten Boom has suffered tremendously throughout her telling of survival. She has been in isolation, starvation, and exile. All these things have a great affect on Corrie, but that does not stop her from living her life when she departs the concentration camp. Although the experience may linger with her, she has a spirit about her that allows her to move forward, and that spirit is God. She set up a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors, and wrote a memoir.
Vladek, the father of the author Art, has a more difficult time coping with the aftermath of his Holocaust experience. During the Holocaust, Vladek strived in the concentration camps because of his physical ability and fitness, and his skill. This enabled him to secure food, shelter, and safety for himself and his family. However, after the war, Vladek still saves everything and tries to exchange those things that he no longer needs. Art portrays his father to constantly work on small projects, some of which he is incapable of completing. Art demonstrates how Vladek's personality is largely dominated by his Holocaust experiences. On top of that, Vladek accidentally calls Art by the name of his son who died in the war, which serves as a final testament to the continuing relevance of the Holocaust in Vladek's life. These different accounts of how one continues life after devastation, has taught me that each person who experiences trauma deals with it in differently from others.
The theme of survival and what survival looked like for each Holocaust survivor is different. Corrie focused on God’s faith. He was able to overcome the mental trauma of solitary confinement and the physically brutal conditions at Ravensbruck. And Vladek survived based on his skill set. He survived the Holocaust because he possessed an intelligence and resourcefulness.
My reading of the Holocaust has been enhanced due to having multiple perspectives because I was able to see the different experiences each Holocaust survivor encountered. It let me see how people went on to live their lives after the devastating occurrences they encountered.
It was interesting to get a different perspective from a German child who witnesses her friend Max falling victim to the Holocaust to reading Maus where you see Vladek's experience but also Art's emotional response to his father's experience. Liesel and Max in The Book Thief had a more emotional connection and Max shared his experience with Liesel personally. Vladek was more matter of fact when sharing his story with Art. It was also interesting to get a sense of living in the period as a German citizen with Liesel compared to Art being of modern times looking back at it.
ReplyDeleteLiesel had a sense that something was wrong and immoral. She comforted Max and they used books to express their frustration. Liesel made Max not afraid to talk about it. However, Vladek was not as keen on talking about his experience with Art. Art had to keep him on topic and pull it out of him. It made me think about how time could be used to tuck trauma in the back of the closet. Max was upset and Liesel could empathize because she lost her family, was taken in by strangers, and could have a sense of the context of the Holocaust period even if she didn't quite understand his situation and how he felt. Art saw the effects that his father's experience had on him but wasn't as able to connect because he felt guilty for not having experienced that.
I wonder how Valdek's story would be different if he was telling it to a child. I wonder if he wouldn't be so matter of fact and would be more emotionally attached because he wouldn't expose the darkest of details. Maybe he would have chosen a theme of friendship and how he needed those people and their bargains to survive rather than the cynical "you can't even trust friends" theme the graphic novel starts with. We saw Liesel get a little scared of what Max was journaling, but she responded differently to the book he made just for her (The Standover Man). He showed his appreciation for her and compared her to other very influential people he had had in his life. He began his ability to talk to her when she stood over him and asked him about his dreams because she was haunted by nightmares too.
Liesel did not agree with the ideology of Germany at the time but could not express it. She also did not know the secrets of the concentration camps and the total reality of Jewish horror. Art was able to know the horror of the situation because the past was exposed by his time, and so knowing even the basic details and imagining his parents in that situation must have been really hard. Furthermore, The Book Thief had some suspense to it because you weren't quite sure what was going to happen to everyone. In Maus, we knew his mother would eventually commit suicide and his father would survive and he would eventually be born after the whole experience. It was just a waiting game of when it would all happen.
Between reading the two books, readers get a sense of what it is like to listen to Holocaust victims. The youth of Liesel and the amount of trouble in her life so far connect her to Max on a personal level where he can willingly express his fear. Art’s adulthood allows Vladek to give him a detailed, disturbing story in a matter of fact way. If I were to listen to a survivor, I would be more in Art’s shoes because I did not witness the Holocaust firsthand and I am older. I wouldn’t expect becoming best friends with the survivor, but I would hope to get closer to them than I previously was. I would expect the survivor to have to explain the context for me sometimes so I could imagine and understand the situation more clearly. However, if the survivor saw some innocence in me or maybe wanted to appeal to my femininity, there could be some sort of theme or story rather than pure facts.