The role of propaganda plays a crucial part in the encouragement of both the Polish and Jewish people to betray their neighbors, friends, and even their family members. Nazis used propaganda to shape their beliefs on the Germans; they used films, press and radios, because they wanted to flood the Germans with messages that were designed to gain support and acceptance of their vision for the future of Germany. In films Jews were even characterized as less of a person and were considered an “alien race.”
In Chapter 5 in Maus I, Vladek builds a bunker inside an attic that can only be reached through a chandelier when and one day when they found a stranger in the room below then that said his wife and he had a starving baby and he was only looking for scraps. They gave him a little food but that same afternoon the Gestapo found Vladek and the rest. When they took the stranger in the bunker they thought about killing him, the betrayal had gotten so bad that everywhere they turned they had to determine if they were a friend or a foe. In this case, the stranger was a foe, he was an informant that gave them up. Vladek had a cousin named Haskel, and he was the chief of the Jewish Police, when Vladek and Anja were captured Haskel agreed to have them released in exchange for a diamond ring in the end, Haskel betrayed them and did not help them escape. This goes to show that family did not mean anything anymore, Vladek’s own cousin betrayed him, it was everybody for themselves.
In Chapter Three of Maus II, when the war was almost over the Gestapo had the prisoners marching. One of the guys from the attic with Vladek talked to the guards and tried bribing them with gold to let them escape in the woods, to shoot at them but to shoot over them so that it would look realistic. Vladek does not trust the Germans, although the Germans made the deal with the Jews to let them escape, they shoot the runaways with whom they made deals with. This does to show that the Germans did not give a second thought to killing the prisoner no matter if they paid for a deal.
Propaganda will always be a part of society that is just how or government works, people promote and publicize their particular political case and point of view. Whether or not people in the united states will betray their neighbors, friends, and even their family members in the United States is hard to tell, but we are living in a world full of hate based on the color of our skin. Our current President has been taking it out on immigrants, specifically Hispanics/Latinos that are just trying to provide a better life for their kids, a life they wish they had when they were growing up. The migrant caravan for example, it is legal for people to ask for asylum and people do not understand asylum is not just granted, it is a process that includes a court date to establish if there are ground for that asylum.
President Trump has been using his propaganda of, “make America great again,” as if America was not already great, then proceeding to blame immigrants for “stealing jobs.” He has also been using propaganda to say that everyone coming to seek asylum in the migrant caravan are all criminals is not true, they are parents trying to get away from violence in their country, trying to give their kids a better life only to have tear gas to try to disperse families with their young kids. There are so many “fake news” going around which promotes propaganda that is not true, yet people believe these “news” and do not even check the source to see if it is factually correct or not. Since President Trump was elected president hatred towards certain people have now been more open and said out loud than previously before.
There is no superior race, everyone is a human being that deserves respect, generosity, and kindness, no one deserves to be belittled just because they are a certain race or ethnicity, and promoting propaganda that states otherwise does not make someone a better person. In Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Anja’s own sister, Tosha, killed her nephew, Richieu, along with herself and her own kids, because she was afraid of them going to concentration camps. Having someone be so belittled to the point where they rather poison themselves, their kids and their nephew so they will not suffer in the gas chambers, Tosha chose death over the concentration camps, that is unimaginable pain and suffering.
