Welcome back to the second discussion. The situation keeps getting worse for Vladek, Anja, and their families. Let's get to the summary.

TW: Nazi cruelty, death, suicide.

Part 4: The Noose Tightens

Art visits his father again. Vladek wants him to climb up a ladder and fix a leaky drain pipe. Art offers to pay a handyman. Art bought a tape recorder so the interview goes smoother.

Vladek is released from the POW camp in 1940. Twelve family members live with the Zylberbergs. His niece and nephew Herman and Hela were at the New York World's Fair when the war started, and it saved their lives. They are only allowed small amounts of food with ration coupons. Brother in law Wolfe works at a Jewish organization and gets extra. There's always the black market, but it's dangerous. Anja's family live like they did before even though their businesses were confiscated.

Vladek met up with a former customer tailor who now makes uniforms for the Germans. Vladek calls in favors from past customers to get cloth to sell to the tailor. He saved half of the money. He almost gets caught in an SS raid. His father in law arranges for him to have a work card. Things keep getting gradually worse. The Germans took their new bed set and didn't pay for it as payback for Anja's mother being too sick to move from the bed before.

Mr Ilzecki hid Vladek during a raid. He offered to hide his son Richieu along with his own. Anja refused, and only the Ilzecki's son survived the war. (Art asks his dad to keep the story in order.) In 1941, all Jews were relocated to a ghetto. They had a nighttime curfew. The entire family moved into two and a half rooms.

Two men who Vladek traded with on the black market were arrested and hanged in the street. Vladek hid a while. (Anja wrote her life story in a diary after the war. When Art asks about it, his dad changes the subject.) He traded gold and jewelry, hiding it in Richieu's stroller. He sold extra groceries to other shops. Then he worked in a carpentry shop.

In 1942, there was a notice that all Jews over age 70 were to be moved to a "convalescent home." Anja's grandparents were in their 90s and were scared. They hid in a shed with a false wall. The Germans threatened to take Anja's parents in their place. The grandparents had to leave and were murdered in Auschwitz. Art asked about their knowledge of the camps. People came back (they must have escaped) and told of the horror. A few months later, there are orders for all Jews to register at the stadium. They knew it was a trap. Vladek's father visits and asks him what to do. He had been staying with Fela, Vladek's sister. They are too afraid not to go.

The thirty thousand or so Jews were separated into two categories: elderly or with many children to the left and able bodied to the right. Vladek's in-laws made it to the right. Fela had four kids and was sent to the left. Vladek's dad had been sent to the right but snuck over to the left to be with his daughter and death. Those with a stamp on their ID card went back to the ghetto. Vladek stops his story (as he should).

Mala tells Art that her mother was taken away in the stadium that day. Ten thousand people were crowded into four apartment buildings. Many died. Mala's mother was hidden in a coal cellar, and Mala smuggled her out. Later on, her parents died in Auschwitz. Art asks about his mother's diaries and rifles around his dad's shelves. Mala never saw them.

Chapter 5: Mouse Holes

Art is awakened in the morning by a frantic Mala. His father tried to climb a ladder by himself to fix the drain pipe. He wants Art to come help. Art can't come. No problem, his neighbor can help.

A week later, Art visits his dad, who is sorting nails and screws in the shed. He is short with his son. Mala told him that Vladek read the comic "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" that Art did from years ago.

(Prisoner on the Hell Planet: Art depicts himself as a prisoner and had been in a mental hospital. His father found Anja dead and relied on Art for emotional support. At the funeral, Art recites the Tibetan Book of the Dead while the rest of the family says the Kaddish. Art feels so guilty and blames her for the pain she left behind.)

Mala was shocked at how raw it was. But it was as she remembered it, too. Vladek said it brought back memories of Anja. Father and son go for a walk. In 1943, more orders come for Jews to move to a village called Srodula. Vladek's family got a cottage. Jewish guards made them walk to work in Sosnowiec.

Anja's uncle Persis visits and brags that as head of the Jewish council he can bribe the Germans to keep his elderly father safe. He could help Tosha and her family, too. Even take Richieu. They agreed. That was the last time they saw them alive. (But they didn't know that yet and continued to believe they were safe.) Persis and the rest of the Council were murdered. The rest of those left in the ghetto were taken to Auschwitz. Tosha poisoned herself and the three children rather than be murdered by the Nazis.

Little children of Srodula were rounded up next. The rest of the family dug bunkers to hide in. Vladek drew a diagram of the coal cellar with a hiding place. German dogs could smell them but couldn't get to them. They moved to another house and made another hiding place in the attic. The ghetto was to be liquidated further. One day, a man saw them up in the roof as they were going out to look for food. He told the Germans, and they were captured and stood in a courtyard.

Vladek had hidden some jewelry in the chimney, and he paid his cousins to help. They only helped the younger adults and left Anja's father and mother to die. Cousin Haskel was a schemer and a crook according to Vladek. He arranged to have the man who ratted him out be killed. Vladek buried him. They got Vladek work in the shoe repair shop.

Vladek has chest pains in the middle of talking about Haskel surviving the war. He takes nitroglycerin. A German officer almost killed Vladek, but when he saw his last name on his papers, he let him go. Haskel's brother Pesach sold slices of cake. He mistook laundry soap for flour, and it made people sick.

The ghetto was to be emptied by the end of 1943. Haskel and his brothers had made a tunnel out of a pile of shoes that led to a bunker. Anja's nephew Lolek was 15 and confident he would survive with his electrician skills. He was killed too. Anja was distraught after they received the news about Richieu and Tosha. All of her family was gone. Vladek consoled her and told her they'd survive together.

Fifteen people hid in the bunker under the shoes. They chewed wood to feel like they were eating something. Pesach and some others paid a German to look the other way. They were shot anyway. The next day, the ghetto was empty. Vladek and Anja disguised themselves as Poles. They had nowhere to go.

Vladek shows his son his safe deposit box at the bank. He gives Art a key. A cigarette case, a powder case, and a diamond ring are there. He retrieved them after the war from the chimney in Srodula. He wants Art to give the ring to his future wife (Françoise). He's afraid Mala will get it and all she cares about is his money. He misses Anja.

Chapter 6: Mouse Trap

Mala complains about Vladek to Art. He only gives her a $50 monthly allowance. Art tells her Anja had to beg for any money for his school supplies. When they first married, he told Mala to wear Anja's clothes. Art worries that his father will be portrayed like the stereotype of a miserly Jew. He shows his dad and Mala a page from the book. Vladek says Art will be famous like Walt Disney. (Both did draw mice.)

In 1944, Vladek and Anja are searching for a place to hide. Their former governess Janina turns them away. Vladek could disguise himself better than Anja could. The man living in his father's house hid them. An old woman saw them and yelled. She was senile so would be less likely to be believed.

A man follows him on the street. He is Jewish and hiding in plain sight. He tells Vladek to go to a street where the black market is. He bought some eggs, milk, and sausages (from a pig? Cannibalism?). He goes back, and a friend tells him of Mrs Kawka who will hide them. Anja worries every time he leaves to get food. A woman named Mrs Motonowa says she'll hide them. (Art asks if he paid her. Of course, and for the food, too.) Her son liked Anja, and she tutored him in German. The Gestapo caught her with black market goods, and they had to leave quickly and walk like they weren't being followed. They hid on a construction site. Then they hid back in the barn.

Mrs Kawka hid a man and his son. She knew a smuggler who took them to Hungary. (The Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz towards the end of the war, Vladek told Art.) Mrs Motonawa felt guilty for chasing them away and hides them again. Her husband was coming home, so they hide in the basement. Anja is scared of the rats. Vladek said they were mice. She didn't bring them food for three days because her husband got suspicious.

As Vladek was walking, a Polish child calls out that he was a Jew and was scared. Vladek had to lie and say he wasn't and do the Hitler salute. He meets with the smugglers. Anja won't go. Mrs Motonowa doesn't trust them either. Vladek stops to visit a cousin who is hiding. Polish guests threaten to tell the Gestapo that she's hiding Jews. Vladek gives her money to buy more alcohol for them. His cousin Miloch is living under a garbage heap with his wife and son. He told him to stay with Mrs Motonowa, and they survived the whole war that way.

The smugglers showed Vladek a letter from a friend saying he's safe in Hungary. It was a trap. The smuggler put them on a train, and after an hour, the train stopped in Vladek's home town. The smugglers called the Gestapo to arrest them. He helped a Polish prisoner write letters to his family in German, and he shared the food his family sent. A truck came to take them to Oswiecim (Polish name for Auschwitz). It was 1944.

Art finds out Vladek burned his wife's diaries. Vladek had briefly glanced at them and noticed she had written that she hoped her son would be interested in her story. Art is rightfully angry at the loss and calls his father a murderer. He leaves angry.

Extras

Marginalia

Yellow stars on their clothes.

Jewish Council. So cruel to have a council to round up their own people.

Theresienstadt

Meshugah: Yiddish for crazy

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Kaddish

Hungary in WWII was part of the Axis powers. Germany occupied them in 1944.

Besuchen wir doch Frau Kawka: But we will visit Mrs Kawka.

Auschwitz

Excerpt from The Art of Spiegelman documentary.

Come back next week, July 22, for Part 2, chapter 1 to 2.

Questions are in the comments.