First published 1992
A cartoonist grapples with his father’s harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust. Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish man, recounts his passage through the Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz. His son’s complex relationship with his aging father is set against the backdrop of this unimaginable trauma. At every turn, this is the ultimate survivor’s story — and the story of the children who must bear witness.
Genres: holocaust, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, graphic-novels-comics
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Auschwitz, Poland, United States
Period: Holocaust
144 pages · Paperback · Pantheon
Content warnings: violence