Chapter Analysis: Vladek's War-Time

In this chapter there are several new characters introduced in both Artie’s modern time and Vladek’s war-time. Pavel is a character that has substantial importance to Arties life. Pavel is Artie’s shrink, who he sees once a week to discuss his life and relationship with his father, who is now dead. Pavel is a Czechoslovakian Jew who survived both Auschwitz and Terezin. Artie gets a little bit of knowledge about Auschwitz from Pavel; since he is experiencing some writing and drawing blocks. Artie struggles to depict Auschwitz visually and in a meaningful way since he didn’t physically experience it. An important character to Vladek is Yidl, although he might not have been the best person in Vladek’s time at Auschwitz. Yidl allowed Vladek to …show more content…
One of these diagrams was of how to fix shoes. Having no prior experience with fixing shoes it was helpful to see Vladek’s process to repair shoes. It demonstrated how to fix an open sole. He had to use double thread covered in wax then make a hole and push the thread through half way. Then put two more holes higher up and bring the thread through them. Cross the threads while pulling both ends through the hole in the sole and repeat. Vladek was able to do this process so well the boot owner couldn’t even see the stitches. The diagram also had various pictures showing the process helping the reader understand the process as well. Another diagram in this chapter shows the set-up of the crematorium buildings where Vladek was working. The diagram gave two views from the outside showing a building that looked like a bakery according to Vladek and an aerial view of the building. The aerial view showed the underground gas chamber and dressing room along with the back view of the ovens. A smaller diagram showed the inside of the crematorium. On the top there are several rooms including the undressing room, execution room, and a room for melting gold fillings. In the middle was the room filled with ovens that fed to the chimney. On the top part of this room there was also a corpse lift. On the bottom of the diagram was some toilets and coal