In the book "Maus" by art speigleman the son Artie is curious about the holocaust and asked his dad questions about what the experience was like. Vladek, the father tells his story about what happened in the holocaust and what the nazis did to prisoners of war. Vladek in the flashbacks meets a girl named Anja where they try and survive the holocaust. Vladek is captured and forced to work for the nazis. In the concentration camps vladek meets other Jews who he befriends with. Vladek using his intelligence of other languages and tasks survives the holocaust and later dies of a congested heart in 1982. Vladeks intelligence helped him survive the holocaust.
Vladeks intellengence helped him in many situations such as surviving the Kapo. The Kapo was a polish prisoner who was hired to help watch the Jews in his cell block. Vladek teaches the Kapo English because vladek can speak polish and English. The Kapo helps vladek survive for a while because he gave vladek hints on where to stand and what to do to not be seen but eventually they found vladek and took him away.
Vladek is very smart because he used tools to survive the worse situations. For example the train. Vladek and a few thousands prisoners were thrown into a train and given only a blanket and bread. Every day a few hundred would die and every day vladek became smarter. He used his blanket as a hammock. He traded snow for food and sugar and he stole bread from the other Jews who were dead. Vladek also stayed off the ground because Jews were stabbing each other's legs resulting in infections and diseases. That's why vladek is very smart.
Vladek is smart because he used his intelligence to get jobs. Vladek used what he knew to have four different jobs, tin's man, shoemaker, tutor and translator. Each job got him rewards for example in the shoemaker business he got a sausage from cleaning a generals shoes. In the tutor job he was given hints to survive in the tin's man job he was granted access to other areas of the camp and the translator also helped him learn and meet new people.
In conclusion vladeks smartness helped him survive the holocaust. By using tools from nothing to help him survive. Also by using his knowledge to do different jobs and knowing different laungadges to help him learn new things. The theme of the book was to never give up and keep fighting when things are looking bad.
