along with its own problem on how to remember the Holocaust. Without the willing compliance of the other party, reexamining and reevaluating a country’s own false narrative becomes an arduous task filled with challenges. Verhoeven demonstrates this through the different obstacles Sonja must overcome in reexamining her own village’s narrative. Even after suing the city for access to the documents she needs, Sonja still has difficulty attaining the files. Excuses for the delay in the documents arrival ran from “you want the Zumtobel documents… they are still checked out” to “the documents are so old. Too brittle. They mustn’t be touched anymore” to finally “the problem is the documents are too new. Personal rights. You understand, right? …show more content…
Because this hinders Sonja’s goal in seeking the truth (and consequently justice), she sues the town again to change the statute back to thirty years until public display. Despite a successful verdict in her favor, it is only when she brings TV reporters as witnesses that the archivist declares “thank god! The Zumtobel documents have reappeared” (Verhoeven). Outside of court challenges, Sonja faces additional obstacles that obstruct her from the truth including death threats, physical violence, and ostracisation from her community. However, the community abruptly changes their attitude in her favor and honor her efforts which Sonja challenges as a means to “silence [her] because [they’re] still afraid of what [she] might find out” (Verhoeven). Verhoeven’s nostalgia for honesty is represented in Sonja’s own journey in Pfilzing whose own efforts to reexamine his country’s participation in the war were hindered by the government and citizens. Though his films were important contributions to the New German Cinema movement and to German cinema, many …show more content…
This included Spiegalman who wishes to gain the insight on how and why the events creating the Holocaust could have occurred. Some of the mystery comes from his father whose tactics and resourcefulness throughout the ordeal he finds both captivating and questionable. One of the many methods he portrays himself using to understand the events of the war throughout his novel is rationalization and logic. Throughout Maus II, Spiegalman showcases several instances of him trying to rationalize what happened in Auschwitz and the actions of his father. In a conversation with his father, he asks “ ‘you left the box in the barracks? How could it not be taken?’ ‘I didn’t think of it’ ‘But everyone was starving to death. Sigh—I guess I just don’t understand.’ ‘Yes, about Auschwitz, no one can understand” (Spiegalman 64). Throughout this conversation with his father, Spiegalman is shown trying to make sense of the actions of his father’s using logic and rationale. However, he learns quickly that rationale and logic does not always translate coherently the actions of others in times of extreme distress. Upon reflection, both Spiegalman and his father have difficulty trying to decipher and understand his father’s choices while imprisoned in Auschwitz. This forces Spiegalman to come