SOURCE: Staub, Michael E. “The Shoah Goes On and On: Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus.” MELUS 20, no. 3 (fall 1995): 33-46.

In the following essay, Staub argues that Maus examines the dilemma of adequately representing the Holocaust in ways which are meaningful to modern readers.

In some of the huts are huge glass-enclosed showcases of death. Behind the glass are great bunches of human hair, piles of shoes, stacks of eyeglass frames, heaps of gold teeth and silver fillings, a tangled mass of crutches and artificial limbs, a jumble of dishes, pots, and brushes, and mounds of valises, prayer shawls, books, phylacteries, and clothing—the pitiful possessions of the former inmates. In other cases are displayed tattoo needles for putting prison numbers on the victims, uniforms, rations, insignia, letters written by forced laborers and never mailed, communications from camp officials boasting of their brutality, models of the gas...