Not able to connect

It’s apparent when you read Art Spiegelman’s Maus, that there is a wall built between Art and his father Vladek. In the opening pages of the story, Art is a child skating with some of his friends, as he is skating he falls and his friends make fun of him. Art then goes crying to his father who asks him “why do you cry, Artie”? Art then tells him and Vladek replies “Friends? Your Friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, Friends. You understand later in the story that Vladek was in hiding with fellow Jews who he considered friends. When they were in hiding together, food was scarce and they all got hostile towards one another until eventually they gave up or got caught when they were trying to find food (as did the Jew on page 126 who agreed to bribe the guard). I think Vladek had a hard time connecting with his son, and the same way Art had a hard time connecting with Vladek. Art says that he “hasn’t seen his father in a long time” in the beginning of the story because they “weren’t that close”. Drawing from this and from the food example I think Vladek pushed his son Art away because he was unable to connect with him. At the same time I think Art had a hard time connecting with his father because he had no idea (until later on when he interviewed his father) what his father had exactly gone through before, during, and after the Holocaust. Maybe trust was an issue for Vladek, since, going back to the food example, Jews would incidentally put others and themselves in danger, in hope to save the group and themselves. I don’t think it’s until Art writes Maus that he truly understands his father.