Moscow bookstores have taken the graphic novel Maus off their shelves in anticipation of the 70th anniversary of the USSR's in World War II, celebrated in Russia on May 9. The graphic novel Maus is a tale about surviving the Holocaust, by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991, with Jewish people represented as mice and Nazis depicted as cats.
On April 23, Russian author Margarita Varlamova reported on her Facebook page that employees of a Moscow bookstore told her she would be unable to buy the book until after May 9. According to Forbes Russia, journalist Daria Peshchikova also reported that a bookstore stock manager told her that all materials depicting “German Nazis” would be removed from store shelves until after the Victory Day holiday.
“’No, we aren’t out of stock. They are just taken down from shelves because the book covers depict a swastika’ [said the store clerk]. I said, ‘For God’s sake, this is an antifascist book!’” wrote Varlamova on her Facebook page.
Parts of Maus first started appearing in Russian in 1993.
Maus is written as a story told by a father to his son about surviving the Holocaust at a German concentration camp. The characters are depicted as animals: Jewish people are represented as mice, while Germans are drawn as cats. In 1992, the book became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. The cover of the book depicts a swastika.
In early April, a toy store in central Moscow received an official police warning for selling a series of figurines depicting famous Nazi soldiers. Moscow authorities later announced a plan to inspect clothing stores, gift shops and newsstands in search of banned symbols such as the swastika.
For more, see This Victory Day in Moscow, buy you son that Nazi figurine he’s always wanted