Art Spiegelman created Maus, a pulitzer-prize winning graphic memoir about his parents experience of the Holocaust. To approach the unspeakable, Maus used the innovative illustrative conceit of depicting Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats.
Recently, a school board in Tennessee banned Maus from its classrooms. In response, the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga organised a conversation with Art to address issues raised and answer questions directly from affected students.
I listened in as a fan of Art’s work and captured some themes.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Art quoted this in reference to the reasons for the ban by the school board - the use of curse words and a naked cartoon mouse. The naked mouse was his mother Anja who commited suicide in the bath, unable to bear her memories.
A story of survival
Contrasting the offence of the Holocaust itself with the reasons for the ban, Spiegelman suggested that this was an almost comicly authoritarian response to a story of survival.
A story of family
Spiegelman’s troubled relationship with his parents was a consequence of their experiences. "My house was a suburb of Auschwitz".
A story of comics
Comics have always posed a threat to adult control since their origin, being uniquely accessible to children and their pocket money. Art’s parting advice was:
"Keep your nose in a book and keep other people's noses out of whichever book you stick your nose into."