Art Spigelman, author of the graphic novel Maus, says the removal of his book from Russian bookstores ahead of Victory Day “is a real shame.” He told The Guardian that “this is a book about memory.” The Guardian reports that Spiegelman said he doesn’t think Maus was the intended target, but that there is “an intentional effect of squelching freedom of expression in Russia.”
Several 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.
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.
Read more: How Russia’s anti-fascist censorship has jumped the shark