Tons of paper have been covered with print in Gazeta Wyborcza (28^th April 2001) by Lawrence Wescher, the journalist from The New Yorker, in order to prove that the author of comics-book "Maus" Art Spegelman is an artist full of the best intentions.
Spiegelman, the son of Jewish emigrants from Poland, who had been lucky to survive Auschwitz and who then managed to rebuild their live in USA, has been growing up overshadowed by Holocaust. He couldn't stand that atmosphere of his home, so he left it when he was 18 and went for flower-power life. However the day has come when the memory came back to him and beset him so strongly that he had to react it somehow — that's how he got to the idea of "Maus": the comics dealing with Holocaust, in which the people would be pictured as the animals. Comics made a big success, it has been translated into twenty languages and became a bestseller, also in Germany where it purportedly has been recommended to be read in schools. And only Poland was waiting to be attached to this chain of success. And here it comes: some years have passed and comics "Maus" is being published also in this country. But here a case arises...

While the Jews are pictured by Spiegelman as mice, the Germans as cats and the Americans as dogs, Polish people are pig-faces!

They could feel somehow offended so there is a need to show that the author had nothing wrong on his mind when creating in his comics Polish pigs... And the Spiegelman justification goes like this: "The main feature of pigs is that they don't actually belong to a metaphorical alimentary chain prevailing in the story. The mice are eaten by cats, but the pigs - they are not. From the mice point of view the pigs are rather of no danger to them". Furthermore he says: "in American comics tradition the pigs don't evoke any negative connotations". And finally: "Hitlerite used to tell of Jewish as the "bugs", which they were going to exterminate" while the Poles were called pigs by them. But "that was not me who established that metaphor (...) I only wanted to try it, to treat it seriously, to confuse it and deconstruct". What is the reason to feel offended then?

Mister Spiegelman would rather expect that "some Pole be angry with me for showing Jewish as mice".

Mister Weschler and Mister Spiegelman, why do you treat your Polish readers as if they were fools?

The pigs are of the reputation of rather intelligent creatures after all! Why should we feel offended for mice? In American tradition, as well as in Polish one, they don't evoke any disgust; the term "bugs" is reserved for insects such as louses, bed-bugs, fleas and cockroaches. Though mice had eaten our king Popiel still it is only a legend of ours. Though in our kid song "princess was eaten by mice" (alimentary chain!), but this princess was made of marzipan. And in some poem (also for kids) we can read: "little mouse emerged from its burrow, its eyes shining like the beads". It's cute, isn't it? Cats are mice murderers. That's true.

But I can guarantee that, dear Sirs: in Polish tradition (and in American one as well) cats are likable creatures: they have nice furs, they purr and they evoke respect for they are independent, wise animals, they do go their own ways — not like dogs which are enslaved by their faithfulness. You surely know illustrator Jim Davis, who made cat, called Garfield, a hero of his comics — this cat is intelligent, smart, taking the things a little bit ironically. Garfield is so fine! We often call our kids "kitties" and our beloved girl is also a "pussy-cat". Therefore there is no wonder that Germans liked "Maus" so much, Mister Spiegelman! The fact that they could also find the polnische Schweine in your story was surely one more pleasant thing for them and no one of them felt offended for that, that’s for sure.

But why do you lie saying that in America the pigs are of no negative connotations?

Is the word "pigs" written by members of Manson Family on the wall of Romanski's house a proof for that? As far as Poland is concerned we do know and like little pig from "Winnie the Pooh" and we like a TV "pig of high class", but still - right or wrong - the whole connotation about the pig is decidedly bad. During the German occupation we used to say "Only pigs go to the movie". During the time of communist regime in Poland there was such a joke: De Gaulle, Khrushchev and Kennedy made a bet, who from them would stay longer in pigsty. And Khrushchev won: he was staying up there so long that finally the pig couldn't stand him any more and rushed from pigsty...

If I said, that as to us you behaved like a swine producing comics "Maus" (in German language it is called "Schweirerei"), would you take it as a compliment? Or what if I told you that you made a pig out of you by doing what youÂ’d done? Or if I transformed your name into "Pigelman"?

It is sad and it's a shame that somebody in Poland was ready to publish - for his own profit only - a book which is popularizing stereotype of Poles as pigs and of Poland as pigsty worldwide. Mister Spiegelman hit the nail on the head: he couldn't offer better gift for the haters of Poles from American Diaspora. And he made good money out of Holocaust by the way...

Translated by (stu-born)

Krystian Brodacki, , 0000-00-00

powrot