2. Vladek and Anja travel to a sanitarium because Anja became very depressed after having her child. On the way to the sanitarium, they see a Nazi flag hanging in the center of a town and they become very concerned.
3. When they return to Poland, the textile factory had been robbed.
4. Vladek leaves Anja and his child behind because he was drafted to the Polish Reserves Army.
Chapter three –
1. Vladek’s father tried to keep him out of the war by only allowing him to eat salted herring, drink no water, and let him sleep only 3 hours a night to make him lose weight and look unhealthy for his medical examination.
2. Vladek’s life in the POW camps was difficult. He had to endure hours of strenuous work and harsh weather conditions.(the cold, they barely fed the jewish pow’s)
3. After Vladek was released on Parshas Truma, he was able to get back to his family in Sosnowiec by convincing a Polish train worker that he just escaped from Nazi war prison (the poles hated the germans) and that he was trying to get back to his family. The train main hid Vladek in the train when they got to the border, and fortunately, helped him return to Sosnowiec.
4. Vladek’s relationships with the people around him tell us a lot about his personality. In my opinion, Art and Vladek’s relationship is good. Art sometimes gets annoyed with his father, but I believe that Vladek is only looking out for Art because he loves him and he doesn’t want to lose him like he lost Richieu. Vladek’s relationship with Mala isn’t the best, but this may be because he is still so upset after losing the love of his life, Anja.
Chapter four –
1. When Vladek returns to his family, many obvious changes have taken place, including:
a. Living arrangements – 12 people had now been living in Vladek’s father-in-law’s house.
b. Food – food was much harder to get: they only received coupons for a little amount of food.
c. Jewish businesses – All of the jewish businesses had been taken over by “Aryan managers.”
d. Family furniture – Vladek’s father-in-law had a nice new bedroom set that the German’s would have loved to take from him. They ended up selling it the German’s for a little extra cash to help out the family.
2. Vladek and Anja ultimately had gave Richieu to Ilzecki’s Polish friends to hide, after a year of keeping him with them but he didn’t make it through the war.
3. The four Jews that were hung in the square were guilty of dealing without coupons.
4. Anja’s family helped hide their 90 year old grandparents from being taken to Theresienstadt (a place in Czechoslovakia where all jews over 70 were transferred to). After trying to hide them, they had to hand them over to the Jewish police who ended up not taking them to Theresienstadt, but to Auschwitz, where they were killed in gas chambers.
5. At the Dienst Stadium, there was a selection. Old people, families with lots of kids, and people without work cards were sent to the left. People who could work and were healthy were sent to the right. The people who were sent to the left (including Mala and her mother, Fela and her children, and Anja’s father who snuck to the left side) were sent to live in crowded ghettos before being sent to die at Auschwitz. The people who were sent to the right (including Vladek, Anja, and Richieu, had their passports stamped and were sent back home).
Chapter five –
1.Art’s comic strip “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” shows the story of his mother’s suicide and how he and his father reacted towards it. One night, Vladek returned home to find his life dead, her wrists cut and a empty pill bottle beside her. Art was so disturbed and the guilt that he was feeling was overwhelming. He felt that he had been responsible for his mother’s death because he didn’t assure to her that he truly loved her so much. Vladek grieved so badly that Art had to console him, even though he was distraught as well. Art felt so hopeless, like his mother had murdered him along with herself.
2. To keep herself and the three children from being taken to Auschwitz, Tosha killed herself and the children by taking the poison that she wore around her neck.
3. Vladek and his family made sure that they had good hiding places – bunkers – in their last two house to hid from being taken to Auschwitz. In the first house, their bunker was located directly below the coal bin in the kitchen, and behind a false wall in the coal cellar. In their second home, the bunker was located above the upstairs bedroom, behind a false wall in the attic.
4. Haskel Spiegelman was Vladek’s cousin, a chief of the Jewish police. Vladek thought that Haskel was a “kombinator,” a crook, because he was happy to take the jewels from Anja’s father, but he wouldn’t take the risk to save him and his wife.
5. Vladek gave Art a key to his safety deposit box. In it was a cigarette case and a 14 karat gold powder case that he hidden in the chandelier bunker in Srodula, and Anja’s diamond ring that she wanted Art to have for his wife.
Chapter six –
1. Vladek and Anja’s decision to hire smugglers to get them to Hungary was not the right decision because on their way to Hungary, the Gestapo raided the train and sent the family to Auschwitz.
2. Miloch, his wife, and their son hid at Mrs. Motonowa’s house. Ultimately, they went to hide with Mrs. Motonawa, where they stayed safe until the end of the war.
3. Vladek burned Anja’s diaries one day after she died because they had too many emotional memories.
4. As Volume I ends, Vladek and Anja had been separated in Auschwitz and they did not know if they would ever see each other again.