How Did Vladek Spiegelman Survive The Holocaust

Imagine living through the Holocaust as a European Jew. Some of the hardships of those who survived the Holocaust seem unbearable. The book Maus by Art Spiegelman depicts his father's story as he lives in Poland during WWII as a Jew. It covers his life while he was hiding from the German army and after when he was brought to Auschwitz. Vladek Spiegelman was lucky to have survived the Holocaust because, of the dangerous situations he encountered, the time he spent in concentration camps and the deadly illnesses he contracted. While living in Poland during the height of WWII Vladek Spiegelman experienced many life threatening situations. A significant time Vladek got luck was when he was in Srodula, “Vladek had ran into a German soldier who had his gun pulled on him, but once he found out that he was a Spiegelman he let him go. However, this was not always the case the soldier that had stopped him had the nickname “the shooter” because the killed Jews regularly” (Spiegelman 120-121). If Vladek's family didn’t have the well known prestige and influence in the community Vladek would have been killed long before he encountered the
Vladek told Art that, “In Auschwitz together I was 10 months” (Spiegelman 228). This wasn’t an exact timeline because he also lists off the time he did all of his jobs and it adds up to a year. Despite the discrepancies in his story, Vladek was in Auschwitz a long time. He was very fortunate to do so because when large amounts of Jews started coming to Auschwitz on RSHA transports, “only 20% of them were kept alive and placed in the camp as prisoners capable of performing slave labor” (Citation). RSHA transports were with trains and Vladek arrived on a truck so the he might have had better odds of surviving, but is still clear in the book that some of the people on the truck with him were sent right to the gas