Student Name
ENGL 4200
Dr. Collins
25 September 2011
Annotated Bibliography: Maus
Chodoff, Paul. "The Holocaust and Its Effects on Survivors: An Overview." Political
Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1997, pp. 147-157. E
BSCOhost, libraryproxy.sdmesa.edu/
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3791989&site=eds-live.
Summary
In the article “The Holocaust and Its Effects on Survivors: An Overview,” Paul Chodoff asks
crucial questions regarding the psychological effects of the Holocaust on both survivors who
directly experienced the event and individuals indirectly exposed to the horrors of the
concentration camps. Chodoff begins by giving an account of a patient, whose story he
introduces as that of “a former inmate (Mrs. S) who was a patient of mine” (148). After
establishing an account of the Holocaust from this first-hand witness, the psychologist Chodoff
attempts to “describe some of the immediate effects” of such experiences and “how prisoners
responded to concentration camp stresses” (148). Next, the author approaches the crucial
question “Did it make any difference for survival how a prisoner behaved in the camps?” (152).
After explaining that survival was less about “how prisoners behaved” and more about “luck,
accident, and chance,” (152) Chodoff investigates the difficulty which many survivors of the
Holocaust experience in dealing with what he labels as “survival guilt” (154), a form of
psychological anxiety experienced by former prisoners when faced with the task of adapting
meaning to their survival amongst the death of millions. Chodoff then compares and contrasts
the symptoms of another psychological issue which he terms “Concentration Camp Syndrome”
(153) with the symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the concluding
pages of his article, Chodoff shifts focus from the survivors of the Holocaust to those who
experienced the Holocaust in another manner. Here, he includes a brief discussion concerning the
psychological effects on second generation survivors before moving on to the effects that the
Holocaust has had on post World-War II German society.
Evaluation
Paul Chodoff is a practicing psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., and is associated with the
Department of Psychiatry at George Washington University. His article “The Holocaust and Its
Effects on Survivors: An Overview” offers a unique look at the effects of the Holocaust on
survivors through the perspective of a psychiatrist. In writing his academic article, Chodoff relies
on his personal practice of psychology as well as with the academic research of his peers. As in
any patient interview, some aspects of the story might not be true to the minute detail.
Never-the-less, such interviews are a vital part of understanding both the event in question and
the psychological effects of it on the individual being interviewed.
Application
This article would prove beneficial to research involving the psychology of various characters in
Art Spiegelman’s Maus. In particular, the issues of “survival anxiety,” “Concentration Camp
Disorder,” and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may be applied to Vladek in order to explain his
character and better understand the trouble he experiences in applying meaning not only to his
memories, but to the fact that he lived through an event that millions of others did not.
Cohen, Steven M., and Leonard J. Fein. "From Integration to Survival: American Jewish
Anxieties in Transition.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
Vol. 480, 1985, pp. 75-88.EBSCOhost, libraryproxy.sdmesa.edu/login?url
=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.1045336
&site=eds-live.
Summary
In this article, authors Steven Cohen and Leonard Fein introduce the idea that the Jewish
population in America has gone from a point of cultural integration and assimilation to fighting
for survival of religious tradition. In the beginning of the article the authors discuss the transition
into American society which Jews fought for upon immigration. They claim that “Much of the
American Jewish history-until the late 1960s- can be read as the story of the Jewish struggle with
the terms of the American offer.” According to Cohen and Fein, “Most Jews…sought a workable
balance between Jewish loyalty and modernity, between authenticity and integration” (77). The
authors go on to explain that first generation immigrant Jews often struggled with the difficult
task of assimilating into American culture while retaining their traditions and identities. Next the
article turns to the second and third generation immigrant Jews. Rather than the task of
integration that plagued the first generation, the second and third generations are faced with the
problem of ensuring the survival of Judaism in America. Because of the removal of these later
generations from the integration period in Jewish-American history and their separation from the
atrocities of the Holocaust, Cohen and Fein argue that attempts to rediscover and give meaning
to the Jewish experience in the Holocaust are possible. The authors claim, however, that studies
and works on such aspects of Jewish history must be met with the question “Is it good for the
Jews?” By asking this question, the later generations may ensure that their work benefits “the
matter of Jewish group interests” (83). From here the article enters the closing pages, plunging
into contemporary political issues facing the Jewish-American population, such as the debate
over Zionism and America’s support of Israel, before concluding with a final look into the
cultural survival of the modern Jewish-American community.
Evaluation
"From Integration to Survival: American Jewish Anxieties in Transition” was published in
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in association with The
American Academy of Political and Social Science. The article was written by Steven M. Cohen
and Leonard J. Fein. Cohen, Professor of Sociology at Queens College, CUNY, also claims
authorship of numerous works on American Jewish culture and values. Fein is editor in chief of
the independent Jewish magazine titled Moment, and was formerly Professor of Contemporary
Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. Like Fein, Cohen has produced numerous works in the
field of Jewish studies. The collaboration between these two individuals expresses itself in the
form of a well-researched academic article that approaches the Jewish-American experience in
the twentieth century.
Application
The value that this article holds for a research paper regarding Art Spiegelman’s Maus rests in
the approach the authors take to explaining the Jewish condition in twentieth century America.
Cohen and Fein’s work focuses on the struggle of Jewish immigrants to integrate into American
society, a struggle that Vladek himself would have went through in his life as a Jewish
immigrant. Furthermore, the article looks at the second and third generations of
Jewish-Americans and the ways in which they develop meaning and identity by re-visiting the
events of the Holocaust. This aspect of the article directly relates to Art Spiegelman himself, as
well as his semi-autobiographical character, Artie.
Staub, Michael E. "The Shoah Goes on and on: Remembrance and Representation in Art
Spiegelman's Maus." MELUS, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1995, pp. 33-46. E
BSCOhost,
doi:10.2307/467741.
Summary
In his article "The Shoah Goes on and on: Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's
Maus,” Michael Staub looks to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, seeking to explain the ways in which the
work represents the Holocaust, the story of survivors, and the effect of the memories associated
with those stories. Staub starts by declaring what Maus does and does not do, and what the work
offers to Holocaust literature. Next, Staub visits the style of Spiegelman’s Maus, claiming that
“Despite its unusual status as a comic book, Maus remains remarkably traditional in its
documentary strategies for relating its oral narrative” (34). In the ensuing pages, he deals with
the question of what Holocaust literature offers us and how it can be evaluated, claiming that
even the “characters in Maus are continually questioning what value written representations have
in the first place” (35). Continuing with the theme of written representations, Staub turns to the
burning of Anja’s diary by Vladek, and the implications of such action in the minds of both Artie
and his father. After introducing the diary burning incident, Staub focuses on the character of
Artie and the difficulties he has dealing with his father’s memories, not only as a fictional
character but as an auto-biographical representation of Spiegelman. Staub claims that “Maus is
very much about the inability of art (or Art) to confront fully or represent metaphorically a
monstrous past.” He does not limit Spiegelman’s work to a portrayal of the psychological effects
of the Holocaust on individual characters. Instead, he goes on to state that “it is also about the
tensions involved in understanding” on a larger scale “what it means to have a Jewish identity in
a post-Auschwitz age” (37). In the following page he continues this study of an over-arching
meaning by arguing that “the key issue” portrayed by the work is the suggestion “that identity
can never be understood as self-evident,” that “Maus works continually to disrupt comfortable
assumptions about where the differences between people lie” (38). He continues with the idea
“that ethnic identities are not fixed” (39), citing Spiegelman’s inclusion in Maus of the decision
regarding which animal he should use to portray Francoise, a French female who converted to
Judaism. In closing, Staub gives his interpretation of panels from the first few pages of the eighth
chapter of Maus, titled “Auschwitz (Time Flies).” Here, Staub claims that “the words Art
speaks” in the panels in which Spiegelman sits at his drawing desk, “identify the various
temporal landmarks relevant to Maus” (43), primarily the struggle with the memory of the
Holocaust and his method as an author of representing his father’s story in written form.
Evaluation
"The Shoah Goes on and on: Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus” was
written by Michael E. Staub, who currently holds the title Professor of English at Baruch
University, CUNY. He has had several works on Jewish experience and the representation of
Postwar (WWII) America published, including his academic article "The Shoah Goes on and on:
Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus,” which was published in 1995 by
The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS).
Application
There are several clear ways in which Staub’s ideas may be used as support for a research paper
on Maus. Staub’s attention to the significance of Maus to Holocaust literature would prove to be
helpful in research regarding the representations of survivor stories in literary forms. Relating
more directly to research on the characters in the graphic novel, their actions, and how they react
to remembrances of the Holocaust, the article would prove helpful by assisting an understanding
of the psychological difficulties of attempting to add meaning to the memories of the Holocaust
and the concentration camps. To give a more focused example, Staub’s article would prove
beneficial to research exploring the effects on Vladek of Anja’s memory as represented in the
burned diaries, and the psychological consequences of his burning the diary.
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