At yesterday's convocation, Holocaust survivor Mrs. Rose van Thyn told her story very effectively.  She is the only survivor of the Holocaust that I have ever heard speak in person, and it was a very different experience than hearing about the Holocaust on television or in books.  After the convocation, she showed some of us her tattoo-62511, old photos of her husband and herself, and recent photos of the death camps.  After hearing such hellish tales, these physical proofs heightened my awareness of the dark reality of the Holocaust.  I had never questioned its happening before, but I can now imagine it more realistically.
           Reading Maus shocked my senses as well.  Countless connections exist between Mrs. van Thyn's story and that of Vladek Spiegelman.  This alone makes me wonder how anyone could believe that the Holocaust never happened.  The Nazis took Mrs. van Thyn's valuables in 1940 and her family in July of 1942.  She attested to Hitler's plan of exterminating the Jews as quickly and as cheaply as possible--by gassing them.  Placed in a group of 100 women going to Auschwitz, Mrs. van Thyn believed she would work until the war was over, when the Jews would all be freed.  They were stripped, shaved, and made to take freezing showers.  She and others were subjected to medical experiments--sterilization tests--where they often gave blood and withstood many injections.  No one ever had enough food, and lice, typhoid, diphtheria, and scarlet fever claimed hundreds.  If a person was sick longer than three days, he or she was gassed.  In January of 1945, the Allies invaded Normandy, and Mrs. van Thyn and the other women of her group left Auschwitz.  They hiked for three days in subzero temperatures, only to be left to die in cattle cars.  Ninety percent died.  On April 26th, the war was over.  Soon after, Mrs. van Thyn returned to Holland, only to find that of her immediate family and 35 first cousins, only one cousin remained alive.
        Vladek Spiegelman had similar experiences.  In August 1939, he was drafted by the Polish army, and the war began on the first of September.  He became a prisoner of war and suffered through several POW camps in the bitter cold (Book I, p. 53).  After being miraculously returned to his family, conditions worsened.  Their furniture was taken, and soon after, the twelve were relocated to a 2 ½ room house (p. 82).  Later, 10,000 Jews were taken from Sosnowiec, and Spiegelman lost his father and sister and her four children.  Again they were forced to move, this time to the ghetto of Srodula.  Spiegelman and his wife escaped being deported to Auschwitz right away and fled from Srodula.  By this time, much of the family had already been killed, including their son, Richieu.  The couple tried to escape to Hungary, but the men who promised to smuggle them across the border instead betrayed them to the Germans, who took them to Auschwitz, where they were separated.  Spiegelman also took a freezing shower, was registered, and was tattooed.  He fortunately gained favor with the block supervisor by teaching him English, and he was safe for a time.  Anja was in Birkenau, another branch of Auschwitz.  Working as a tinman, Spiegelman saw the horrors of the crematoriums.  When the Russians got close, he and thousands of others marched to cattle cars (p. 84), where most of them died.  Lice and disease were rampant, and Spiegelman contracted typhus.  Finally, the war ended, and he returned to Sosnowiec where he was reunited with his wife.
        Mrs. van Thyn and Vladek Spiegelman both endured unspeakable horrors during the Holocaust.  They survived by chance, and nearly everyone they knew died.  Their stories can now be preserved so that generations to come will not forget the awful truth of the Holocaust.  Knowledge is power, and if future generations know about the suffering of the Jews and other groups in the Holocaust, they will be empowered to prevent similar tragedies.