Auschwitz to Gaza

 The haunting narrative of “Maus,” where anthropomorphic characters depict the Holocaust’s horrors, draws scarily similar parallels with the current situation in Gaza, where Palestinians are being constantly murdered just Jewish people in Auschwitz were. Yet, history seems to be repeating itself where many behave like the Polish did, not wanting to concern themselves with “trouble.” 

In Chapter 3 of the second part of Maus, Françoise and Art show two different perspectives the youth have on Holocaust survivors. Françoise empathizes with Vladek, being considerate of his traumatic past, and urges Art to “stay with him a few days longer.” (Spiegelman 250). On the other hand, Art responds rather condescendingly by asking her if she’s “kidding” (250). He doesn’t care about the fragile state his father is in, having to deal with Auschwitz, he just wants to leave. Identically to Françoise, many teenagers actively engage in raising awareness about the atrocities occurring in Gaza in their schools, share informative content on social media, and even donate to fundraisers directed to helping the struggling Palestinians. They show that they care about other human beings. While, some teenagers can’t even give up going to their favorite fast food places, those supporting Israel by sending funds to them, and watch the situation in silence. They don’t even care about fellow humans suffering. I see many of my peers, especially those very active on social media, buying Starbucks on the daily or constantly going to McDonalds to get food. Despite it being all over social media, are they really not aware of what’s going on in Gaza? I mean, how hard can it be for you to go without Starbucks or McDonald’s?

Similar to the attitude of the Polish depicted in “Maus,” people don’t care enough to concern themselves with social issues. In fact, they could possibly start supporting Israel if that meant it would benefit them. Polish “smugglers” tricked the Jewish by telling them they would be sent to Hungary to be rescued but really, they phoned the Nazis to take them to Auschwitz (157). They knew that if they gave away the whereabouts of hidden Jews to the Nazis, they would gain food, clothes, jewelry. I mean, who cares about some Jews being gassed and burned alive in concentration camps? As long as I can live happily, it doesn’t affect me. Similarly, people in present day show insensitive attitudes to those being relentlessly murdered in Palestine. They go about their days not caring about the innocent children, women, men, people just like them, being killed by Israeli soldiers. I’ve tried informing so many of my friends, classmates, and adults I trust that the least they can do is give up supporting corporations that directly support Israel. Or they could take as little as 5 minutes out of their day to spread awareness on Palestine on social media platforms. Though, most of them have shown careless attitudes saying that “not everything is about politics.” (I will never understand how killing civilians for no reason equates to politics). As long as they can continue sipping their coffee and munching on some fries, why does it matter that people are being bombed?

Give it a couple years, the public will start writing books just like “Maus,” making documentaries, recounting stories of the horrors in Gaza. But right now, they won’t do anything about it. It’s scary how we consume dystopian content, like the Hunger Games, or even learn actual history about what happened in the Holocaust, but much of society doesn’t care to be on the right side of history. Soon they’ll be painting Palestinians as flies, harmless and minding their business, and Israelis like frogs, always on the hunt for flies, talking about the predator-prey sort of relationship between the two. People will say how wrong it was for Israel to target Palestine, even though they didn’t do anything! But will people actually open their eyes to genocide happening in the present? Or will they just wait for history to repeat itself again, like they always do, and then have their hindsight bias come forward by saying, “Oh, if that were me back in the day I would’ve done everything to support Palestinians.”