Although the two stories are both different, each approach is effective in helping the audience to better comprehend the Holocaust. Both novels should be read to understand the scope of what happened in the Holocaust. Browning’s writing style in Ordinary Men can be closely compared with that of a history textbook. This is due in part to the fact that Browning is a historian writing on extensive research he has collected. Art Spieglman’s Maus is a narrative telling a story of a survivor. In contrast, Spieglman is not trying to teach a history lesson.

Ordinary Men illustrates the point of how ordinary men can turn into killing Nazis. His book is essential to understand how the Holocaust was carried out. Most textbooks do not describe how Germans became Nazi’s. Browning collected research from testimonies of Nazis after the war. Ordinary Men principally follows the Police Battalion 101. This battalion is a good example of ordinary working class, family men of Germany chosen to carry out several essential duties in the final solution. Browning succ

In the beginning, the Battalion was killing Jews in a very personal way. Each Jew was led out into the woods by a Battalion member and shot. This gave the Battalion member a chance to see that these Jews were real people that they were killing; Jews sometimes from their own home towns and backgrounds. The Battalion members did not like this and eventually the killings became less personal and were changed into more mass killings. “ Distancing, not frenzy and brutalization, is one of the keys to the behavior of Reserve Police Battalion 101.” (Browning 162) The less human and more distant the Jews were, in most cases, it was easier for the members to carry out their duties without feeling remorse or guilt.

Vladek’s story of his experience through the Holocaust is effective in another way because it is told through the eyes of his son Art who was born after the Holocaust. Art shows how the Holocaust has effected his life also. In Maus, Spieglman does not just tell his father’s story. He shows how his fathers story is affecting everyone in his life even years after the Holocaust. This helps the audience to see that the Holocaust was not something that has passed and is history; it is something that is remembered everyday in the lives of the survivors and in the lives of the families of the survivors.

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