The Art of Spiegelman

A full 18 months out of university, it wouldn't be a bad bet to suggest that I've probably forgotten anything valuable I paid the best part of £20,000 grand to learn. I did a literature degree and, by the end, was understandably sick of the site of novels, let alone poetry. To give you an idea of my declining interest in traditional literature, I've gone from reading two to three novels a week during my studies to having read three books in the last year and a half, two of which were autobiographies.

But, over the weekend, a documentary popped up on my Sky planner which reminded me exactly why I chose to give three years of my life to an arts degree which, if you believe some, isn't the best way to go about getting a job. The documentary was called The Art of Spiegelman and documented the work of Art Spiegelman, a graphic novelist of Jewish descent, famed for his depiction of his parents' and his own subsequent experience of the Holocaust, in Maus.



Maus is essentially a portrayal of the Holocaust, in which Jews are portrayed as Mice and Nazis as Cats. But there's so much more going on - particularly Art's own understanding of being a member of the generation of Jews that was born after the Holocaust, and had to come to terms with the guilt of their heritage. Before Maus, I'd never read a graphic novel, but it showed me how much can be done in the cartoon format. After all, a picture tells a thousand words, so why write all of them out?

For example, in the frame above, Spiegelman portrays himself as a human in a mouse mask, not as a fully-fledged animal. I wrote reams on what that little intricacy could mean for the post-Holocaust generation of Jews.

I'm not a particularly morbid person but trauma and the Holocaust in particular whet my literary appetite, which is what draws attracts me to Spiegelman's work. Like most students, I skipped uni classes that weren't (in my opinion) worth getting out of bed for but, whether I was fresh as a daisy or still half-drunk from the night before, I drank in every minute of my Holocaust module.

Back to the Spiegelman documentary though, and it turns out, Maus wasn't the only traumatic event his work has tackled. A New York resident, Spiegelman was in his office when the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. His daughter's high school was just four blocks away and in the likely impact zone had the towers toppled instead of collapsing. From the experience of that day, he produced In The Shadow of No Towers.

I've tried to explain my fascination with trauma in my academic essays, and I'm still not sure what the route is. Perhaps it's because, no matter how many ways you read about it, things like the Holocaust are only understandable through experience. And maybe not even then. It's just one continuous process of trying to learn about something you can never fully comprehend. I don't have a spare 10,000 hours but I'm willing to guess that it still wouldn't be enough to master what the Holocaust or 9/11 mean about the world we live in.

But it won't stop me trying.

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Bring On The Wall! (Berlin By Day)

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I spent the weekend soaking up some culture and alcohol (more on that later) in beautiful Berlin. I'm not the world's most travelled 22 year-old, so I was all in when a mate suggested a long weekend in the German capital. Without boring you with all the historical titbits I picked up - did you know Hitler was addicted to speed? - here's a taster of what we got up to in the city.

Perhaps surprisingly, my favourite couple of hours in Berlin were in the Topography of Terror museum, which is based on the site of the SS headquarters during the Nazi regime. Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust in particular, have always fascinated me more than any era in history, so I was desperate for the exhibition to be on our itinerary. The exhibition is completely free (I couldn't even find a donation box) and gives a pretty comprehensive but concise guide of the development of the police state after 1933.  There's, inescapably, some pretty graphic imagery but if you can stick with it then it's an extremely worthwhile visit. A lot of the photo documentation is in colour as well, which you rarely see in history textbooks.

Killing two (maybe three) birds with one stone, outside the museum is some remnants of the Berlin Wall, with more of the Topography of Terror exhibition built in front of it. Ironically, the wall is now protected by metal fencing. And, just to add to the history of the site, the wall stands in the shadow of the offices that were built by the Nazis to house the Luftwaffe and now serves as the German tax office - told you there would be titbits... 

The site is just round the corner from Checkpoint Charlie, a former crossing point on the Berlin Wall, occupied by the Allies. It's now possibly the most disgusting shitstamp of Western culture in Germany. Outside a conveniently located McDonalds, you can actually pay to have your picture taken with Germans dressed as American soldiers.

The rest of trip around the city largely took in the architecture and all of their accompanying tales. While there wasn't time to go inside all of them, the sites themselves are pretty spectacular.

The Altes Museum, which I found a picture of from the 1930s in the Topography of Terror exhibition.

The Berliner Dom, which sits right next to The Altes Museum in the Lustgarten.  In the background you'll be able to pick out the TV Tower - about the only decent building the Communists contributed to the city during the Cold War. 

The Reichstag - I can't help but quote The Producers at the site of this building. 

The Brandenburg Gate

Finally, probably one of the less attractive but most modern constructions in the city; Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is constructed from hundreds of concrete slabs of different height, which rise out of the ground to form a sort of maze/prison. The idea behind it is to portray the Jewish journey through the Holocaust, so as time goes by, the blocks become more dominant and repressive. The memorial makes a lot of sense once you're in the middle of the piece and one turn in any direction can leave you very much on your own.

I could write a post on each one of these sites - but I'm well aware no one would read that. There's so much to see and so much to do that it's difficult to do it justice with just my tourist snaps. Of course, there was plenty more than what the travel guide suggests. Keep your eyes peeled for a sample of Berlin nightlife and the city's street art later this week...

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