MAUS ...keeping the stories alive

Cartoonist Art Spiegelman began serializing the tale of his father's Holocaust surival in 1980, famously depicting the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats. The strip ran from 1980 to 1991, and was eventually collected in two volumes. In 1992, it became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer.

Even today, the book has a rare power, providing a visceral and incisive look on the daily and often hourly struggle to survive as the Nazis invaded Poland and continued their systematic extermination of the Jews. Perhaps because of that continued power, Maus is constantly in the crosshairs of political censors, anxious to pull the book from libraries, an action that ironically often fuels the book's popularity and sales.

In this episode, Raman and Ryan will talk about Maus and its legacy. They'll be joined by Emily Mintz, an oil painter and sculptor who builds exhibits for the Bronx Zoo. Maus holds a special place in Mintz's life, a descendent of Jewish refugees who grew up hearing the stories of relatives who survived, and many who didn't.