Generational trauma is defined as trauma that is passed down from one generation to the next and is a constant theme in Maus. The story of Maus and other similar stories make us ask the question that Kolar also explores in his “Intergenerational transmission of Trauma in Spiegelman’s Maus” saying that the trauma of the parents is passed down to the children and has a significant impact on their lives from birth. They all grow up very connected to the trauma of the holocaust which causes it to be almost as much a part of their identity as their parents. Generational trauma stories are so frequently about the holocaust and Art in Maus is someone who experiences it. Art’s family relationships deteriorate from it so much that they are never able to become a real loving one, it was always defined by distance. This distance only grows when the trauma is not talked about but the difficulty in this is that can be very hard to do and it is something that Vladek and Art clearly struggle with. An example of this is the comparison of Art to his younger brother by Vladek and Art feels that he is constantly getting compared to him furthering the distance between the family. Trauma can become cultural memory and this was the way it was for jewish ancestors. Young people feel strong connections to their heritage naturally and an event like the holocaust is part of that heritage which means something to those people and the jewish culture. I think that the key to escaping this generational trauma is not simply running from it, but it is remembering it and acknowledging the trauma to move on. This is seen in Maus with Art making the book and speaking to his own father about the trauma that he endured. This trauma affected Art deeply and speaking about it with his father and making the book I think healed him, even if it was just a little bit, having that conversation with his father and confronting the trauma. While that is good for the children it is also good for the parents to tell their children what happened in their past and know the full family story even though it is very sad.
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Originally posted by CapeCod2343 on February 03, 2026 09:00
Generational trauma impacts the children of Holocaust survivors like Spiegelman by passing down the need to have and need everything to be clean due to the uncleanliness conditions of the camps; they also deal with the unstable mental state of their parents, which can appear in many forms like detachment, depression, anxiety, and rage. For example, Vladek struggled with the need to keep everything clean and organized whenever Art and Vladek's wife would make a mess by accident, Vladek would get enraged and yell at both of them. Many of the survivors left the camp with extreme trauma that completely altered their personalities. This is seen by Art’s father at the beginning of the book. We see that Vladek was free and happy, but when he was captured, thrown in the camps, and when his firstborn died, he changed completely. The weight of the trauma experienced by direct ancestors as well as communities as a whole plays into the lives of young people today as they strive for justice and accountability by countries that were involved with the Holocaust in search of justice that they couldn't get when many Nazis, like Hitler, killed themselves and or burned a lot of the evidence that could incriminate them. They are also very aware of any injustices that are happening in the world and they are very inclined into speaking out against it, for example I have seen multiple Holocaust survivors and its communities speaking out against the current actions of the current presidential administration and spoke out that is what started the Holocaust and why there should be actions done to prevent another attempt of extreme hate towards an ethnic group. I believe it is possible to move beyond generational trauma because much of the trauma that was passed on is hurtful and damaging, which pushes the next generation the need to end the cycle of trauma, because at some point, one has to move on, but in moving on, one can't forget what happened. Vladek never moves on from the Holocaust, which is understandable because it is hard to get them to move on from that extreme trauma, but this leaves them only moving on when death liberates them from the chains of trauma.
There are many ideas presented in this post that I personally agree with. The most compelling of which is the idea that generational trauma is not permanent and that we as a society have the ability to move past it. In this post, my peer explains how the damage caused by the Holocaust and other events severely damages those individuals. However, due to this damage, future generations understand how dangerous it is to allow similar traits to control them, making them more likely to end the cycle to the best of their ability. This is very interesting to me because it shows how people learn from past mistakes and as a result are better to improve society as a whole. For example, this even relates to Germany. I believe that Germany has done an amazing job at recognizing their past mistakes and trying their best to correct them. They understand why they are wrong, and have made it their mission to make it up to those involved. Other posts seem to agree that countless children of Holocaust survivors experience generational trauma due to the damages caused by events. While they disagree on the ways to solve such trauma, for the majority they agree that trauma can be solved. Lastly, I believe that my peers' posts don't have any grammatical errors to solve within their post and their ideas are fully realized for the most part.
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