My Father Bleeds History is the first of two volumes in Maus, A Survivor's Story, by Art Spiegelmen, and is a historical graphic novel. Artie is writing a story about his father Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and a survivor of The Holocaust. It uses powerful metaphors of good vs evil in its representation of Nazi's as cats and Jews as mice. Artie faces many conflicts in writing about his father's experience of the Holocaust and with opening up old wounds between the two of them including the suicide of Artie's mother Anja.  Artie comes to his dad's New York apartment every couple of weeks to interview him where both men struggle to come to terms with their painful pasts. 

I love this book because it takes the painful stories of the Holocaust and turns them into a comic strip format. MAUS was considered shocking at the time it was written, but the book has laid the foundation for many other graphic novel accounts of the Holocaust and World War II as a whole.The book really made me feel sorry for the characters in the book, especially Vladek who had to witness the full extent of Hitler's hatred towards the Jewish people, "Jews are undoubtably a race but they are not Human", Adolf Hitler (Spiegelman 4). The book gave me a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and the pain that survivors and their families carry. Here is a BBC interview with the author Art Spiegelman from 1992 where he discusses the creation of MAUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7uRyQxM1U

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading historical graphic novels. I found the comic strip format made a difficult subject come to life. I give this book five stars.

Spiegelman, Art. MAUS, A Survivor's Tale, My Father Bleeds History. New York, Pantheon Books,1986.

"The Holocaust." Wikipedia.

"World War II." Wikipedia.

"1992: Art Spiegelman on the Creation of MAUS." YouTube.

Here is my spotify playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1wLfqj24qB9H2gQvcup3ti?si=a7e503c78cd04a71

Here is a BBC interview with the books author Art Spiegelman from 1992. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AwUipUByXmiF7oMu0j9yHUdZmMmBX_NMhG3ux2CmVJU/edit