Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Lost history

What was your reaction to Vladek's destruction of his wife's journals?
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7 comments:

rev amy said...

It was tragic for Art, obviously, and for us, as readers, and for "posterity." I kept craving more solid answers about her story post-Holocaust. But I guess the lack of information is another moment of honesty. Art shared with us what he knew and my desire for details is only a pale reflection of what he must feel.

But for Vladek, I have to think it was a way to actually take control, do something physical about the emotional pain. He had to let so much else in his life slip away while he watched helplessly, this was a moment for him to choose what was kept and what was lost.

12:39 PM, February 27, 2008
kc said...

Yeah, I can see that. I can imagine a torment that would drive you to that, a feeling perhaps that the past can be purged by erasing evidence of it. But another part of me feels that it was monstrously, horribly wrong for him to exert control of HER story, to play God with it, to decide what would exist and what would perish. It should have been preciously guarded for her children, for the historic record, in her honor, forever. HIS story will live on in his son's Pulitzer-winning memorial, but her story, equally precious, is lost for all time. He had no right.

10:12 PM, February 27, 2008
kc said...

Adding to the outrage is the fact that she killed herself, she knew the moment of her death; if she had wanted the journals to be destroyed, she could have destroyed them when she destroyed herself. But she didn't. She presumably wanted them to live on, she wanted her story to remain with the living. And Vladek decided to kill it, to consign what remained of his wife to the trash heap of history. It's unspeakable.

10:24 PM, February 27, 2008
kc said...

(Sorry. The more I consider this, the madder I get.)

10:27 PM, February 27, 2008
rev amy said...

Any anger left over for her? Her suicide accomplished the same thing as Vladek's journal destruciton: the erasing of history, the depravation of her children.

Her story is not absent from his so some of it is recorded in Maus, though not the internal reflections obviously.

Strikes me, though, that that act was not the first time Vladek exerted control of Anja and her story. He seemed to call the shots for them all the way along, even when they were in separate camps and he arranged a message system between them. Of course we only have his POV. Maybe her journals would have revealed a different balance of power.

9:12 AM, February 28, 2008
Erin said...

I don't feel much anger for Vladek over the diaries. Maybe it's that "free pass" thing we were talking about. It seems understandable to me. That being said, it was horrible. Didn't he say that Anja had told him she hoped her son would one day be interested in the diaries? She was purposefully saving them, and it was hideous for him to interfere.

I think it's probably fair to say Vladek's version may have deviated somewhat from his wife's. I've seen several discussions of "Maus" involving the fragility of memory, which is really what the story is based on. This isn't the story of what happened to Vladek, it's the story of what he remembers happening. And knowing how screwed up Vladek's perceptions are in later life, is his story reliable? I never got the impression that it wasn't, but it's something to consider.

11:04 AM, February 28, 2008
kc said...

No, AEL, I didn’t feel any anger for her over her suicide. Probably I would if I were in her family, but I’m not of the camp that thinks suicides are selfish, blameworthy acts. She killed herself because she couldn’t bear living. Who’s to say she should have behaved differently? Who’s to say she could have?

I think you make a brilliant point about Vladek exerting control over her story, as does Erin when she questions his reliability and the “fragility of memory.” I did have the sense, even while I was overflowing with sympathy for him, that he was something of a control freak, and that that was part of his personality even before the war. It’s easy for me to imagine a scenario where something in the journals conflicted with his “reality” so he simply got rid of them. Her record was written and private (therefore more honest?); his was oral and public (therefore more self-serving? — it's a thought.). But it’s equally easy to imagine that he just destroyed them unthinkingly in a fit of black depression. He seemed to regret it, which is why he delayed so long in admitting what really happened to the journals.

He seemed to look upon his wife as a saint, but it’s hard to tell, really, if that was his point of view all along or one that he adopted after her death. I think it’s common for people to glorify dead partners, which also can become a vehicle for self-pity: No one understands me like she did. No one loves me like her. If she were here now, SHE wouldn’t treat me this way. I had a lot of curiosity about what their actual life was like together after the war. Did you?

But back to the honesty issue, I think I mostly trusted Vladek’s account, mainly because he just seemed so tired and worn out, like he just wouldn’t really have the energy to fabricate, and I think Art is honest enough that if he suspected Vladek was being less than truthful he would have exposed that, just like he exposed his racism. Art isn’t interested in sanctifying his parents; he’s interested in telling stories about what human beings are actually like, warts and all.

11:47 AM, February 28, 2008

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