Maus: Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

The next time Artie visits Vladek, Vladek berates him for being late. He wanted Artie to climb to the roof and fix a leaky drainpipe, but now there isn’t enough time. Artie tells Vladek he should hire someone to fix the drainpipe. Vladek, annoyed, says Artie is just like Mala – a spendthrift – and that he will fix the drainpipe himself if Artie won’t help him. When they sit down to talk, Vladek on his stationary bike, Artie takes out a new tape recorder; taking notes by hand is too hard, he tells Vladek. Vladek asks how much Artie paid for the recorder. Artie tells him, cheerfully, that it was only $75. Vladek scoffs and tells Artie he could have found it for half that price. Artie, clearly exasperated, ignores the comment and asks Vladek to tell him what happened after he returned to Sosnowiec after leaving the prisoner of war camp.

Vladek has returned to Sosnowiec to find that life in his father-in-law’s house is very much the same as it was before he left. He, Anja, and Richieu are living in the house with Anja’s parents and grandparents, as well as her sister, Tosha; Tosha’s husband, Wolfe; their daughter, Bibi; and Anja’s niece and nephew, Lonia and Lolek, whose parents, Herman and Helen, were in New York visiting the World’s Fair when the war broke out. Food is very short – each person gets coupons for eight ounces of bread each day and a small amount of margarine, sugar, and jam each week – but the family has enough money to buy goods on the black market, which they do despite the fact that breaking even minor laws is very dangerous for Jews.

After their first dinner with the now-reunited family, Mr. Zylberberg tells Vladek that all Jewish-owned businesses have been confiscated by the Germans. His hosiery factory and Vladek’s textile factory have been taken over by German managers, and the family has no money coming in. Wolfe calls all the men together to play cards. He is lighthearted about the war, and assures Vladek that there is no need to worry, or even to think about saving money in anticipation of hard times. The war will be over before they know it, he says. Vladek and Mr. Zylberberg are both skeptical and nervous.

Shortly after he returns home, Vladek goes out into the city, determined to find a way to earn some money for the family. He wears an armband emblazoned with the Star of David, identifying him as a Jew. He meets Mr. Ilzecki, a tailor to whom he sold textiles before the war. Mr. Ilzecki now makes uniforms for German officers, but he tells Vladek that he still makes suits when he can get cloth. Vladek manages to get some cloth illegally, from a shop owner who owes him money but cannot pay. He sells the cloth to Mr. Ilzecki that same day. When Vladek brings home the money from the sale, Mr. Zylberberg is pleased to see that someone in his family is forward-thinking and industrious.

Some time later, Vladek is out on Modrzejowska Street – the area of Sosnowiec where people go to do business on the black market – when Nazi soldiers close off the street and begin inspecting everybody’s working papers. Vladek hides in a building until the inspection is over, since he has no working papers and would certainly be taken away if the Nazis discovered this. When he returns home, he tells his father-in-law about the incident. Mr. Zylberberg arranges working papers for Vladek through a friend, the owner of a local tin shop who has been producing goods for the Germans. In case of another inspection, the shop owner says, Vladek should run into the building and pretend to be working. Vladek mentions to Artie that the skills he learned in the tin shop would become useful to him later, when he was in Auschwitz.

Over the course of the next year, Vladek says, life in Sosnowiec became steadily worse for Jews. One afternoon, walking past the train station, Vladek sees German soldiers grabbing Jews at random, beating them and shooting them. He fears for his life, but is saved when he spots Mr. Ilzecki, who lives nearby and pulls Vladek into the safety of his home. For hours, he sits with Ilzecki and his wife, listening to the screams and gunshots outside.

Vladek tells Artie that Mr. Ilzecki had a son about the same age as Richieu. One afternoon, while the two children play together, Ilzecki tells Vladek that he has plans to hide his son with a Polish friend until the situation in Sosnowiec improves. Ilzecki believes his friend will hide Richieu as well. Vladek agrees to talk with his family. When he brings up the subject later, though, he finds that Anja and her parents are violently opposed to the idea of surrendering Richieu into the care of strangers. Anja clutches Richieu to her chest and swears, wild-eyed, that she will never give up her baby.

Vladek slowly stops pedaling his stationary bicycle. A defeated look passes over his face. Mr. Ilzecki gave his son to his Polish friend, he says, and the little boy survived the war even after his parents were killed. Richieu was not so lucky. In the end, Vladek says, he and Anja had to send Richieu away to hide anyway. He begins to tell the story – how, in 1943, Tosha took all the children into hiding – but Artie stops him. Vladek needs to tell his story in chronological order, Artie insists, or he’ll never be able to make sense of it while writing his book.

Grudgingly, Vladek resumes his story in 1941, as the situation in Sosnowiec was escalating. At the end of that year, Germans post an order stating that all Jews are to be relocated into a segregated neighborhood, and that non-Jews will be moved into their vacated homes. Shortly thereafter, all twelve members of the Zylberberg household move into a small apartment in a part of town called Stara Sosnowiec.

Vladek continues trading goods on the black market for a few months after moving to Stara Sosnowiec. That winter, four Jewish men are hanged by German soldiers as punishment for dealing goods on the black market. Among these men are Nahum Cohn, a friend of Mr. Zylberberg with whom Vladek has often done business, and Cohn’s son, Pfefer. The Germans leave the four men’s bodies hanging in Modrzejowska Street for a week, as a warning against dealing on the black market. As he remembers these men to Artie, Vladek starts to cry.

Artie asks what Anja was doing during this time. She spent a lot of time writing in her diaries, Vladek tells him. Artie remembers seeing Polish notebooks in the house when he was young, and asks whether these were Anja’s diaries. Vladek tells him that the original diaries didn’t survive the war, but that later in her life, Anja recorded her memories of the war in new diaries. Artie becomes excited – he needs Anja’s diaries for his book, he says, and asks Vladek where they are. Before he can answer, Vladek begins to cough on the smoke from Artie’s cigarette, and urges him to put it out in deference to his weak lungs.

As Artie grudgingly stamps out his cigarette, Vladek resumes his story. After the hanging, he looks for less dangerous work. Gold and jewelry are easier to hide than cloth, so he begins to trade those on the black market. He also sells groceries under the counter, but is almost arrested by Nazi soldiers while delivering a bag of sugar –he escapes punishment by pretending to be the owner of the grocery store where he is taking the sugar. As black market business becomes more and more dangerous in Stara Sosnowiec, he seeks more legitimate work, in a carpentry shop managed by the Germans. Lolek and Mr. Zylberberg work in the shop as well. None of the men are paid for this work. Jewish men need working papers to move freely through the city, so they work simply to have the protection of a legitimate, German-approved business.

In May 1942, the Germans announce a plan to send all Polish Jews older than seventy to Theresienstadt, a camp in Czechoslovakia. Anja’s grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Karmio, are in their nineties and still living with the Zylberberg family. They desperately want to stay with their family. Though most Polish Jews don’t yet know about the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps, Mr. and Mrs. Karmio know enough to be fearful of what may await them if they agree to go to Theresienstadt. The family hides them for more than a month, but soon see that doing so endangers every other member of the family. They are forced to surrender Mr. and Mrs. Karmio to the Gemeinde – the local Jewish government who have begun to cooperate with the Germans in hopes of winning some security for themselves and others in their community. Though they believed Mr. and Mrs. Karmio were going to Czechoslovakia, Vladek says, they later found out that they were sent to Auschwitz, where they were killed in the gas chambers.

A few months after Anja’s grandparents are taken away, a member of the Gemeinde announces that all Jews will be required to present themselves at the town stadium the following Wednesday to have their legal documents inspected and stamped. Many fear that this is a trap, but Jews without valid legal documents are extremely vulnerable, and most feel that they have no choice but to present themselves at the stadium. Vladek’s father tells Vladek that their cousin Mordecai will be working at one of the tables, inspecting documents. If they take their documents to Mordecai, Mr. Spiegelman suggests, he might be able to ensure the family’s safety. Since the death of his wife from cancer, Mr. Spiegelman has been living with his daughter – Vladek’s sister Fela – and her four children. Though he doesn’t know whether presenting himself will be dangerous, Mr. Spiegelman says he will accompany Fela if she chooses to go.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Jews arrive at the stadium. Each person, after the Gemeinde check their documents, is ordered to go either to the right or to the left. People in the crowd quickly realize that old people, families with lots of young children, and people without work papers are being sent to the left. Though nobody knows what, everybody is sure something horrible is going to happen to these people.

Vladek, Anja, and Richieu are sent to the right – the good side of the stadium, for people who are able to work. Everyone from Anja’s family is sent to the good side as well, but Vladek cannot find his father or sister. It is not until later that he learns what has happened: Mordecai approved Mr. Spiegelman’s documents and sent him to the good side of the stadium, but Fela and her family were sent to the bad side –a mother with four children was considered a drain on the community’s resources. Mr. Spiegelman, fearful that Fela would never be able to manage on her own, snuck onto the bad side of the stadium to be with her. Everyone sent to the bad side was killed, Vladek says –about ten thousand people, a third of the Jews in Sosnowiec, were sent to their deaths that day, and his father was among them.

Vladek sags on his stationary bike. He puts his head in his hands, and tells Artie he is too tired to talk more. He overexerted himself with his pedaling, he says. Artie suggests that Vladek take a nap, then goes out into the kitchen where Mala is drinking coffee and playing Solitaire. He tells Mala that he has just been talking with Vladek about the document inspection in Sosnowiec.

Mala, who knew Vladek and Anja before the war and lived in Sosnowiec herself, says the Nazis took her mother away during this registration. She tells Artie about the fate of people those sent to the bad side as she pours him a cup of coffee and lights a cigarette for herself. The thousands of people kept at the stadium were imprisoned in a few empty apartment buildings, which were much too small to hold them all. Without food, toilets, or room to move around, people died of suffocation, or jumped out the window to end their misery. Those who survived were sent to death camps – though Mala was able to smuggle her mother out with the help of an uncle who worked for the Jewish council.

Artie listens to Mala’s story, smoking a cigarette. As soon as she finishes speaking –telling him that her parents both died in Auschwitz eventually –he gets up from the table and hurries into Vladek’s den. Mala, confused, follows him. He tells her that he remembers seeing Anja’s diaries on one of the shelves in the den, and begins sorting through piles of hoarded junk –hotel stationary, outdated calendars – in search of them. Mala, looking frustrated and sad, complains that this hoarding makes her crazy, and says she doesn’t know how much longer she can stand to live with Vladek. Artie doesn’t answer, just stands up and says he should start heading toward home. As he prepares to leave, Mala screams at him to put everything back just as he found it, or Vladek will give her a hard time about the mess.