Animals

Throughout Chapter 3, Spiegelman presents several instances when Jews are degraded to the level of animals. In frames 82.3-5, Vladek almost mistook a fellow Jew for a tortured dog because the Jew rolled around on the ground after being shot. In the situations of the dog and the Jew, there is a threat present. The dog, infested with rabies, threatens to attack his master; thus the dog is shot. At the same time, the Jew's inability to continue walking threatens the group with delay... In order to eliminate the danger, the S.S officer shoots the Jew as if he, too, is a dog. Vladek remarks, "how amazing it is that a human being reacts the same like this neighbor's dog" (82.6).

Aboard a cattle train on page 85, Vladek saves himself by sitting in his blanket perched on hooks in the ceiling. Although resourceful, Vladek can't help but realize that on these very hooks, people chain animals, presumably dead ones. Add on that he is in a cattle train.

By the time the Jews are finally liberated from Dachau-on page 97-Vladek has accepted that he will always be at the level of animals. As a result, when he observes a passenger train pull up to him, he is paralyzed with disbelief and says, "here was a train not for cows and horses, but a real train to take passengers- a train for people! I thought this train must be for the Gestapo, but NO" (97.7). Here is a moment that illustrates the handicraft of the Nazis; if they couldn't kill the Jews, let them forever grovel like animals.