The Effects of the Holocaust

Maus A Survival’s Tale is a two volume graphic novel that artist and writer Art Spiegelman wrote about his father’s time during World War II. It is written in two different time periods. It is written in Art’s father’s past during the Holocaust in World War II and his more present life in New York. These two volumes cover all sorts of themes such as guilt and race and class, and they cover quite a bit of emotional content. The use of both the past and more present tense helps to further show the emotional impact that the Holocaust had on both Vladek and his son Art.
In the very first panel of the first chapter, the reader is introduced to Art and Vladek and is told that they aren’t very close. It had apparently been almost two years since they last saw each other. This sets the emotional tension of the story which continues to build up as Art gets his father to talk about his life. It then switches to Vladek’s life before he meets Art’s mother, Anja.  As the story progresses, the reader is shown the very first stirrings of the anti-Semitic views of the Nazis during the second chapter’s flashback which shows Vladek and his family’s life getting a bit tougher with their business being robbed, and then Vladek being drafted into the army. The story continues in much of the same fashion where the reader sees Art and Vladek interacting in the present day and then switching over to Vladek’s life during the start of the Holocaust, and the tension slowly builds as the story starts to unfold. A pivotal moment where the emotional impact of the Holocaust has affected Art and Vladek’s relationship in the present day can be seen in chapter 6 where Vladek admits to burning Anja’s diaries because they had too many memories, and Art gets angry and accuses him of murdering Anja. 
Another source of emotional impact due to the Holocaust is seen through Vladek’s personality and relationship with those around him. He is forces Art to eat all of the food on his plate which is probably due to the fact that during his time in World War II he had to survive off of what little food he could get. He also mentions later on in volume two of the story that ever since the war he just can’t seem to throw things away, and he is constantly trying to give Art some of the leftovers, though Art always refuses them. Vladek is also very stubborn, and his relationship with his second wife is rather tense for many reasons. One of those reasons happens to be because he refuses to give Mala more than fifty dollars a month because he’s afraid she’s trying to steal all of his money. He seems to be very stingy when it comes to his possessions which is probably due to the fact that he didn’t have many possessions during his time at the concentration camp. It seems as if Vladek himself isn’t a very amiable person because of his experiences which causes him to have a rather strained relationship with those around him.
One of the main sources of emotional impact due to the Holocaust comes from Art when he feels guilty about having an easier life than his parents. He explains to his wife, Francoise, that he would sometimes wish that he could have been with his parents at Auschwitz, a German concentration and extermination camp, simply so that he could understand what his parents went through. In the same chapter, he also explains his sort of resentment against Richieu, the brother he never met because he was poisoned by his aunt, Tosha, who would rather them be dead than them being sent to Auschwitz. He explains that he always felt in competition with his dead brother simply because Richieu died at the age where he could do no wrong and was the perfect child (Spiegelman, Vol. 2 Chapter 1). This sort of tension that Art feels is directly related to his parents’ experiences during World War II. He couldn’t get out of his dead brother’s shadows, and he couldn’t fully understand what his parents went through, so he had to deal with conflicting feelings towards his dad. 
Due to Vladek’s time spent in Auschwitz and having to live through World War II Poland and Germany as a Jew he and his son have been rather effected by the disturbing and emotional impact of those experiences. They have a strained relationship with one another, Vladek is rather stingy and stubborn due to his experiences, and Art feels guilty about not knowing what his parents had to go through as well as feeling like he’s in a competition with his dead brother. They both struggle to deal with these issues, and the reader gets to see how they are both affected by these events. Overall, Maus is a tale of a father and son who have to deal with events in the past that affect their lives every day.

The Ultimate Decision

     The graphic novel Maus A Survivor’s Tale is a story about the holocaust and the genocide of the Jews during world war two. There is a scene where Vladek, the main character of the graphic novel, is hiding in the ceiling above the chandelier from the German Nazis. Vladek is amongst several other Jews hiding and another Jew seems to stumble upon them. They pull the Jew that finds them into the ceiling and begin to interrogate the individual he then tells the other Jews that he is merely looking for food for his wife and starving baby. Some of the other Jews assume he is lying, and they discuss what they want to do with him. One Jew suggests that he may be an informer and that they should kill him. Instead Vladek decides to give him some food and force him to stay the night with them and lets him go in the morning. Later on, that same Jew returns with a few Germans and rats the other Jews out that are hiding.
     This is a very controversial subject. I myself would have let the man live as well because there is no real reason to kill him even though the next day he did report the Jews to the Gestapo. If I were to have made the decision and took his life that would have put me on the same level as the Nazis. The man was simply looking for food for his family, and during this time everyone was doing anything he or she possibly could to survive. All he wanted to do was to survive one way or another just like every other person in that room did, so to kill him because of that reason would, by all means, require the others to die for the same exact thing.
     Another reason why I would have let the other man live would be because if I were in the same situation as he was, I would hope that the others would take me in and help me. I would not want to have my loyalties questioned, and then have my fate decided by a bunch of strangers when all I want is shelter and food. I would hope that the strangers would show me the same kindness that I would have shown the other man. It’s like the saying treat others how you want to be treated. I wouldn’t want to be treated like a traitor and have suspicion cast on my character. I’d rather they showed mercy and took me in.
     To kill simply based off of a hunch would be wrong. Yes, the Jew did end up selling the others out, but no one could have known for certain that he was working for the Nazis. If I were to kill him based off of suspicion, then that would make me as low as the Nazis. Yes, I know that in the story the Jew sold the whole group out, but I wouldn’t have known that if I was actually in that situation myself. Like they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. I wouldn’t kill him simply because I wouldn’t know whether or not he’s telling the truth, and I wouldn’t just assume he’s lying and take his life.
     The situation that Vladek found himself in was a difficult one. He ended up having to make one of the biggest decisions of his life. Should he take the life of a man who might simply be looking for a way to survive, or he might be trying to sell them out to the Germans. He ultimately decides to let the man live, and I think he made the right decision with all the information that they had. If I were in his place and I knew what he did at that time, I would make the same exact decision that he did.

Catapult Destruction

In today’s vast array of weaponry we have things like mortars and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) that can wreak havoc on their intended targets. However, ancient societies were able to cause a lot of damage both to their enemies themselves as well as their buildings and towns without these sorts of weapons. Ancient societies used a weapon that is well-known to achieve these desired effects: the catapult. There are three different societies and people who are known for their catapults and they are the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, and the Medieval Europeans. Out of these three societies, the Medieval Europeans’ catapults were the best in design, purpose, and ease of transportation.

The ancient Greeks built a catapult that was very similar to the modern day crossbow. Their intended purpose for the catapult was to increase the amount of power behind a projectile as well as increase the distance that said projectile could travel, which was a couple hundred yards. They would shoot things like spears or arrows from their catapults and were meant more for dealing harm to the enemy rather than the enemy’s surroundings. They weren’t too big in size, so they were able to transport them from battle to battle with somewhat ease. However, these weapons weren’t overly destructive in nature. As stated above, they were geared towards the harm and incapacitations of the enemy.

The ancient Romans also built catapults. One type of catapult that they used was very similar in design and purpose as the ancient Greeks’ catapult, but the Romans also had a catapult known as a ballista. The ballista’s development was based off of the catapults that the Greeks used, however, its mechanics are different. The ballista used a torsion spring which allowed the projectiles to go a much longer distance (500 yards) with a higher speed than the Greek catapults. This catapult also allowed other projectiles like rocks to be used rather than the fairly small options of projectiles that the Greek catapults used. The downside to this weapon is that it was too big to simply transport from one place to the next, so they would have to dismantle it and take any parts that weren’t made of wood, carry them to the next place that they were going to have a battle, and reassemble it with the wood of that area.

Finally there were the catapults of Medieval Europe. During this time period many different versions of the catapult were used, but the most common ones were the mangonel catapult, the onager catapult, and the trebuchet catapult. The mangonel catapult and onager catapult were very similar in their designs and purposes. The main difference between these two catapults were that the mangonel catapult used a bowl shaped mechanism to shoot the projectiles which allowed for much larger variety of projectiles such as small boulders and garbage. Its range was up to 500 feet, the same as the Roman ballista but with the benefit of causing great destruction to the surroundings and the enemies. The onager catapult did almost the same thing as the mangonel, but the difference was that the onager used a sling to shoot the projectiles rather than the bowl shaped mechanism. Then there’s the trebuchet catapult. This catapult is the best in dealing damage to the surroundings and the enemies because they could shoot the same projectiles as the other two but with the added element of fire. They were more accurate than all of the other catapults, and though the distance of the projectiles was rather small (about 200 yards), the fact that these projectiles could weigh up to 350 pounds more than makes up for the decrease in distance. These catapults were also generally easier to transport because they typically had wheels on the bottom of them so that they could be pushed around.

Overall, the Medieval Europeans’ catapults were the most reliable in transportation and best in design and transportation. They greatly outweighed any of the other catapults’ benefits with their ability to use much larger and more destructive projectiles. However, don’t count the other catapults out. They all are impressive for their time periods, and they all helped out their soldiers on the battlefield.

Throwing Death

There are many different weapons that are used for throwing at a target. The most common weapon is the throwing knife, which comes in a balanced knife or an unbalanced knife. However, there's also other types of weapons that can be used such as the shuriken. Each type of throwing weapon has its pros and cons just like any other weapon does. Out of the balanced throwing knife, the unbalanced throwing knife, and the shuriken, the balanced throwing knife is the best.

Throwing knives are knives that are designed specifically for the purpose of throwing the weapons at a target. They are weighted in two different manners. There's the balanced throwing knife where the center of gravity is centered in the middle of the weapon. Then there's the unbalanced throwing knife where the center of gravity is off-centered. Typically, the unbalanced throwing knife is heavier on the handle throwing its center of gravity off. This means that when the knife is thrown the diameter of the blade and the diameter of the handle are different, whereas the diameter of the blade and handle on a balanced throwing knife is the same. Another thing that the balance effects is the way the weapon itself is thrown. A balanced throwing knife can be thrown either by holding its blade and throwin it or holding the handle and throwing it. Neither way is better than the other because of its equalized balance. An unbalanced throwing knife, on the other hand, has to be thrown by its blade.

The shuriken is a Japanese made weapon that is meant to be concealed. Its also commonly known as a throwing star or ninja star. Shurikens are made out of all sorts of things such as nails, spikes, and other every day materials. The design of the shuriken is broken down into two different types: the bo shuriken and the hira shuriken. The bo shuriken is a spike that is either four sided or eight sided. It typically only has one point, but some bo shurikens come to a point on both sides. The hira shuriken is made up of a thin, flat sheet of metal. This shuriken is the one that is mostly associated to what people think of when they hear the word shuriken. It typically has a hole in the center of it, and it typically comes to four sharp points from the circle. The shurikens can be thrown in a variety of ways like over hand, under hand, and side ways.

Looking at the two types of throwing knives and the two types of shurikens, the balanced throwing knife is the best weapon to use for many reasons. It is typically light weight, and since it is balanced even an amateur can use it with relative ease. It can be thrown many ways, just like the shuriken, but since it has a center of gravity that is actually in the center of the weapon, it is more accurate. It also requires less power behind the throw than the unbalanced throwing knife and the bo shuriken. This is a knife that anyone with some common sense will be able to use.

All of these weapons are good to use when throwing them at an object, but the balanced throwing knife is superior. However, if one is more comfortable with a different blade than they are with the balanced blade, they can be just as skilled as anyone who is used to using the balanced throwing knife. In general, it all depends on the person specifically using the weapons to decide what is best for him or her, but overall, the balanced throwing knife is the best weapon to use.

Bow

A bow and a quiver of arrows are weapons have been around for centuries. Often they are associated with things like fantasy and  fairy tales and epics and romances set in the Medieval times. They have been used for many things such as war, hunting, and sport. Just like there are multiple types of guns and swords, there are many types of bows. Each has its upside and its downside, as well. Between the longbow, the recurve bow, and the flat bow, the recurve bow tends to be the better bow.

The longbow is a classic self bow that most people tend to think of when they think of bows. It is made from a single piece of wood that is at least six feet tall, though typically it’s the height of the archer. This bow has the longest range as well as the most power behind each arrow shot. This bow can release up to 200 pounds of force when the arrow is released. However, due to its construct this bow is difficult to master. It takes great strength in order to use this bow which makes it less likely to be used. 

The recurve bow is a bow with more of a curve in the wood than a longbow does. It’s ends are curved out and away from the archer. Due to its shape, the recurve bow can vary in size. The curve of the bow actually gives this bow an advantage to the other two bows because it can store more energy in the limbs giving it’s delivery an increase in speed among other things. On the other hand, due to the design the recurve bow there is more stress put on the weapon when strung than the other bows. Nevertheless, this bow is used by many archers from beginners to experts because of how easy it is to use this bow as well as how accurate it is.

The flat bow is a long bow, similar to the length of a longbow, but the difference between the two of them is that the flat bow has a rectangular cross-section, and it is typically a little bit wider than the longbow. The design of this particular bow allows the stress to be more evenly distributed than the other bows making it less likely to break or splinter. However, because of its  shape the archer needs to take more time to make an accurate shot. 

Overall, the recurve bow is the better bow of the three. It is the easiest to use, and due to its length it is more manageable than the others. Though it does have its down sides, the up sides of the bow far outweighs them. Nonetheless, all three bows are rather good if the archer knows how to use them to their advantages.

What The @&#%?!

Soldiers’ storm down a villa staircase equipped with an assortment of assault rifles in order to immobilize the intruder. Yelling obscenities, the soldiers point and fire their weapons at the man, John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger), as he dives behind a group of bushes. He then rises from the bushes on the enemies’ right flank and begins his counter attack firing the M60 medium machine gun from his hip he takes out his targets directly in front of him. He continues the assault walking down a path never once letting go of the trigger and carries on his brutal onslaught, hitting his targets out to what appears to be over 150 meters. This scene was from the movie Commando which is a perfect illustration of how Hollywood exaggerates their action sequences, and how they overdue their weapons effects.

For years Hollywood has been creating amazing action movies from Apocalypse Now, to movies like Transformers. These movies contain edge of your seat kick ass action scenes where the viewers are in awe as they watch these big screen heroes slay their enemies, but what a lot of these movies lack is the realism of what the weapons being used are actually capable of doing.  For example the scene I just described where Arnold is shooting with incredible accuracy from the hip, while feasible to perform this maneuver it is entirely unrealistic due to the weapons power. Being that it is a medium machine gun firing, a 7.62mm round, which is meant to take out light skinned vehicles’ such as a car or truck, the M60’s recoil would throw that weapon’s rounds all over the place. Another unrealistic part to this scene is the fact that the M60’s firing rate is 600 rounds per minute and seeing how the clip was approximately two minutes long and he was carrying at least a 100 round belt where was the reload?

With the aid of MythBusters and my extensive knowledge of weaponry there is another movie where Hollywood takes it too far. The Parkour chase sequence in Casino Royale where James Bond (Daniel Craig) is chasing an individual through a skyscraper construction site and winds up in what seems to be a military compound surrounded by armed guards and no way out Bond quickly draws his Walter P99 9mm pistol and fires one round at a set of propane tanks mounted on the wall. These tanks explode sending the guards flying through the air, and Bond swiftly exits during the chaos. While this scene is awesome, it is very fictional. MythBusters is a show where the cast takes these scenarios and put them to a test to see if a lot of these Hollywood movies scenes are possible, and they “busted” this scene on one of their episodes. I have also tried this experiment where I took my Mossberg 500, loaded it with slugs and fired it at a propane tank. What happened was that the propane tank cracked and rolled around on the ground, ejecting its contents into the air.

The action movies that Hollywood produces are, for the most part, visually stunning, but for Military people such as myself find that these movies are full ridiculous non-sense. A machine gun cannot be fired from the hip, a propane tank will not explode with a 9mm round, and a grenade will not blow up a city block! The truth of the situation is that Hollywood should at least do research to make some of these action sequences more realistic.       

Unguard…Touché!

Before guns were created, the sword was the most common weapon used on the battlefield. Each country had its own unique style and qualities when it came to designing these swords and using them. Even though each country had its own idea on how a sword should be forged and what sorts of qualities it should have, it is clear that each continent had an overall common conception on these weapons. The swords that were created in Europe all have similarities to them, and the swords that were created in Asia have similarities to them as well. However, these two continents had vast differences in opinions when it came to these weapons.

European swords were typically meant for brute force. The swords were often crafted for doing a lot of damage by stabbing, hacking, and slashing, but the speed of the weapon was reduced drastically simply because of how heavy the swords were. Though each type of sword has its own weight, the average European sword weighed at least three pounds, but a lot of the swords weighed more than that. For example, the Claymore, a type of Scottish sword, would weigh at least 4.9 pounds. Even though that doesn’t sound like much, one has to take into consideration the duration of use, the amount of force put behind each swing and thrust, and the amount of resistance that the blade faced. Then there’s the type of edge the blade of the sword had. The most common type of blade that the European swords used were the double edged swords, however, they did use single edged swords, but these were typically the soldier’s back up weapon. Another thing that the Europeans used when creating these weapons was the cross-hilt, the two metal rods that ran perpendicular to the blade and was where the handle and blade met. The cross-hilt was meant to protect the user from injuring himself on his own sword as well as preventing the user from punching the shield of an enemy, and it was fairly long.

The design of the Asian swords is different than that of the European swords. For one thing, Asian swords were typically lighter and were created with speed and agility in mind. The blades tended to be single edged blades used more for cutting rather than stabbing. The blades were also curved, though the angle of the curve of the blade differs for each sword. For example, the Katana, a Japanese sword that was used by samurais during the Muromachi period has a slight curve to it, whereas the Shamshir, a Persian sword that was used by the Persians from the 12^th century throughout the 16^th century, has a radical curve of at least 5 degrees from tip to tip. This is a great difference from Asian swords to European swords since the Europeans used straight blades. Another difference between the two continents’ swords is the cross-hilt. As I mentioned before, the European’s cross-hilt was fairly long, but the hilt of an Asian sword is quite small, and in some cases it is a circular piece of metal that protects the warrior’s hand all the way around on the top.

Overall, the Asian sword is better simply because it is designed for speed and cutting rather than the hacking and slashing of the European sword. Also, since it is lighter, the warrior would be able to fight with it a lot longer without getting tired than the warrior who would use a European sword. Although both swords are quite different in the way they are designed, they still served the same purposes. These swords were weapons that the warriors used to defend and protect their nation and the people that lived there. They were used for the destruction of any enemies that threatened their well-being, and they were each regarded highly in the society they were created and used in.

Gamming & Guns

            The average American household has at least one gaming console, if not more, and with the popularity of these gaming consoles a wide variety of video games are made for them. One such type is the classic “shoot em’ up” which are usually set in a time o9f war or great distress. These games have become rather realistic. They have inadvertently become a virtual training session, and gamers will be able to not only tell the difference between certain weapons, but would also know how to reload them and what sort of reactions they could expect if they were to fire the weapon.

            Games are being trained in the basic knowledge of weapons with the graphics of the games nowadays being so life-like, the details of the weapons are precise enough so that the gamer can, in real life, tell the difference between real gun and a toy gun just by looking at it. The realism in the graphics also trains the gamer in the proper way to hold and fire the weapon. In games such as Call of Duty there is always a team of soldiers and the gamer controls the soldiers and fires the weapon as if he, the gamer himself, is actually holding and firing the weapon.

            Not only do these games train the gamer the knowledge of knowing the difference in weapons and knowing the proper way to hold them and fire them, they also train them to know how to unload and reload the weapon properly, as well as what to expect in terms of recoil when firing the weapon. These games show the gamer exactly how to reload a clip/magazine from a weapon. This is precisely because the creators were so detail-oriented in creating these games that they made sure that the process was correct. These games show the gamer how the weapon is fired; the round is expelled out of the chamber after the trigger has been pulled and they see how each weapon recoils after its fired. The gamers may not be trained physically to deal with the recoil; however they are trained to know which weapon would have a stronger recoil and which weapon would have a weaker recoil.

            Overall, todays video games have had a huge impact on society and have become a virtual training tool for gamers, giving them the skills and know-how to handle a wide range of weaponry from their own homes. Though it might not have been the creators intent to make their games a virtual training tool, that is essentially the result.

SAW VS. RPK

            Light machine guns are any air-cooled machine guns that have a caliber not greater than 0.30 inches. A light machine gun (LMG) is a weapon that is meant to be employed by an individual soldier with or with-out an assistant gunner.  A light machine gun can also be defined by its tactical role these weapons are often used in support of an infantry squad, being capable of quickly laying down accurate and devastating suppressive fire for quick retro-grade if needed. The American widely used M249 SAW is a more superior weapon than the Russian RPK.

            The Ruchnoy Pulemyot Kalashnikova also known as the RPK is almost identical to the AK-47 for the exception of a few modulations. The RPK operates on the same principle as the Ak-47. It utilizes the same ammunition, 7.62x39mm, and has almost identical features including the upper and lower receiver and the magazine feed. The difference in the two is that the RPK has a much longer barrel for increased accuracy and effective range. It also has a stronger receiver to handle the sustain fire of an LMG. This weapon was designed in part to replace the out dated Russian RPD and to help standardize the Red Army’s armory. Even though this weapon has been modified to handle the attributes of a light machine gun, the key word is modified unlike most other countries where a weapon is designed from the ground up.  The RPK’s rate of fire is 600 RPM (rounds per minute) the effective range for this weapon is 100-1,000m.

            The M249 SAW (squad automatic weapon) is the American version of the Belgian FN Minimi. This weapon fires the standard NATO 5.56mm round same as the M16A4 assault rifle and the M4 carbine. What is really unique about this weapon is that its designed to use both belt fed ammunition and the magazine fed ammunition via a magazine well on the port side. This weapon also has the railing system which allows the gunner to equip different accessories such as the ACOG  (advanced combat optical scope), a  vertical forward hand grip, a PEQ-2 which is an infrared laser for target acquisition. The SAW also has many different variants of its kind. For example, the Para saw has a collapsible but-stock and a shorter barrel this is optimal for room clearing. The rate of fire for this weapon is 750-1000 RPM, and its effective range is 910m. Although this weapon has a shorter effective range than that of the RPK, this weapon is built for accuracy because the weapon fires the smaller NATO round that leaves less room for recoil. Contrary to popular beliefs that this weapon jams all the time, it’s wrong. Just like any other mechanical equipment like a car, one must maintain the weapon in order for it to function properly. This weapon is superior to the RPK because of its light weight and compact size for better maneuverability and less recoil for improved accuracy.    

GUN LAWS

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. This is a freedom that was provided by our forefathers in order for us to protect ourselves from each other and our own governments, both federal and state.  People these days do not understand that this is provided for us for self-defense, and with the passing of so many gun laws with all their stipulations, it is beginning to put pressure on our second amendment right. Weapons these days are not as easy for one to acquire with all of the laws that are in place. There are multiple hoops which one has to jump though in order for him or her to get a gun.  Gun control is an extremely divisive issue in America, and there is a clear divide between supporters of the gun laws and those opposed. The gun control laws now are fine and do not need to be escalated.

 “[T]he pro-gun lobbyists are out in droves bolstering up their hopeless case, notwithstanding that the massacres will carry on happening until individuals decide to say no to guns,” (Baker).  Even if the gun laws are increased, the people who commit the crimes are still going to be able to get the weapons one way or another, be it legal or illegal means. Within this month alone, a gun that was used to kill a U.S. agent in Mexico was actually purchased by a man in Texas that was a suspect in gun trafficking. This just goes to show that if someone is really intent on committing the offense, he or she will find a way even if there’s a record against him or her. There is an assortment of in placed regulations for a person to purchase a weapon. These laws vary in the fifty states. For example, in California, in order to buy a gun one has to take a weapons safety course on that particular weapon. They must also go through a federal background check, and there is also a ten day cool down period. The cool down period is a period that prevents the individual from acting on pure emotion rather than logic. 

If the gun laws are constantly increasing, people will no longer be able to defend themselves, which goes against our second amendment right, which we will be taking away from ourselves.