Lessons Learned

 Many of those who survived the Holocaust did it on their instinct to survive and many of those traits learned in such a harsh experience with stay with them for the rest of their lives. In Maus II, the second chapter, "Auschwitz Time Flies", there is a page midway through that describes the extensive amount of contraband Vladek had to trade for day to day. He does this in order to hide it all and make the numerous bribes it will take to have his frail wife transferred over to the new barracks being built in his part of the camp. The top center of the page is a simple chart the shows just how valuable things like cigarettes were. Three cigarettes, for instance, is worth a whole days bread while for 200 the person may be able to obtain a bottle of vodka. Art never understands why his father hates his smoking habit so much, but an obvious reason could be that while hiding and in the camps Vladek learned that vices, or unessential goods, can be extremely lucrative especially when there is no need of them. To him they are all bad, but he learns that though meaningless in peace times, addictions can turn out to be tragic downfalls in times of distress. This dislike for cigarettes is also to show how Vladek developed his attitude toward not only his own health, but those around him. In death camps there are no doctors only morticians, which made them care for themselves to stay partially healthy and alive. His health is only one of is many worries, for instance Art cannot stand how stingy his father is and how he mush save everything  or continuously count certain possession. This is a post event habit, but was extremely common and necessary during the time in a death camp. Hiding though doesn't always work and in the book under the chart, Art shows that all his fathers bribe for his mother has been stolen. The panels are very dark as in to this was probably one of his worst moments at the camp and all he could do is to restart collecting. The next panels are of Arts shock in his fathers lack of action after the theft. His son immediately asks why he would leave it in a place where everyone was starving, how could it have not been stolen? Calmly Vladek only says that he never really cared, but Art claims that he must have and he doesn't understand. His father only says "Yes...about Auschwitz nobody can understand", which gave the honest truth that nobody knew what to do in the camps or why such horror could ever happen, but the only thing anyone understood was to survive. To Vladek, throughout the rest of his life, he feels obligated to be uptight and save, because to him such an atrocity happened so quick the thought it could happen all over again never leaves the back of his mind. This develops the tragic conclusion that can be applied to almost all Holocaust survivors, in that their paranoia from the experience never leaves. They essentially feel they must be prepared to fight for their lives at any time all over again, because the fist time it happed no one was ready or heeded the warnings and it all happened to fast for them to run from evil.