learntoquestion ltq discussions

Being the child of a Holocaust survivor, and generational trauma as a whole, can have a very impactful effect on many, and has been for decades now. While the children often didn’t experience the event themselves, they are made aware of its effects on their parents, communities, and the people they love often at very early ages. This can foster a sense of guilt among many, even if they have no just cause to feel said guilt. This can stem from a need to protect their parents from any further harm, or the knowledge that they avoided what so many around them had to endure. This can be seen in the case of Spiegelman, especially when it comes to his relationship with his mother. This is highlighted in “intergenerational transmission of trauma in Speigelman’s Maus,” which highlights Speigelman’s other comic, “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” and how Vladek felt extreme guilt for not showing further empathy and affection towards his mother before her suicide. Upon her death, he felt immense guilt and remorse for his treatment towards her, and this situation is very telling of so many like him who had parents who committed suicide. While the children most likely had little to no impact on their parents death, they feel as though they did, despite the fact that it often connected back to the Holocaust and what they endured earlier on in life.

I don’t know if it would be possible to move beyond generational trauma, and I think that in the case of the Holocaust it is too soon to even really know. However, I think that living with it and acknowledging it seems like a good way to live and move past such a horrific event. I don’t think that it should be forgotten, and that remembrance is really important in situations such as this, but not to the point that it has a really negative impact on ancestors. So, while many families are still too affected to have gotten past generational trauma, such as Vladek’s family and how he is still impacted by the suffering of both parents, I think that for now people can try and find a way to acknowledge it and live with it.

Generational trauma shapes the lives of children o fHolocaust survivors in ways that are often invisible but very influential, and Spiegelman shows this clearly throughout Art’s relationship with Vladek in Maus. Art grows up carrying the emotional weight of an experience he never lived, yet it defines how he understands his father and how he understands himself. In Maus 1, Art admits that he feels guilty for having an easier life than his parents, and this guilt becomes a barrier between them. Vladek's trauma appears in his frugalness, his mistrust, and constant anxiety., and Art absorbs these patterns even when he pushes back against them. Stanislav’s article on intergenerational transmission argues that trauma can be passed down through emotional habits, silence, and the pressure to honor a history that feels deeply overwhelming. This is what happens exactly in Maus. Art inherits not the events of the Holocaust but the emotional atmosphere created by them. The weight of ancestral trauma extends beyond individual families and affects entire communities. In Maus II, Art’s struggle to tell his father’s story becomes a symbol of how younger generations try to make sense of histories that feel both distant and unavoidable. The scene where Art sits at his desk surrounded by drawings of dead bodies captures this pressure. He is crushed by the responsibility of representing a trauma that is not his, yet he cannot escape it. Many young people today experience something similar when their families come from places marked by war. Even without direct experience, they carry the emotional echoes of what their parents and grandparents survived. These echoes appear in family expectations, cultural memory, and the fear that forgetting would mean disrespecting the past. Whether it is possible to move beyond generational trauma is complicated. Stanislav suggests that trauma does not disappear but can be reshaped when it is acknowledged rather than avoided. Maus supports this idea, Art does not free himself from the weight of his father’s past, but by listening and questions, and creating the book, he transforms the trauma into something that can be shared and understood. The act of telling becomes a way of living with the past without being controlled by it. For many, healing does not mean erasing trauma but rather integrating it into a fuller understanding of identity. Maus shows that generation trauma remains present, but it can be carried with honesty to confront the past rather than hide from it.