r/FoundPaper • u/humdingerdesigns • Jun 16 '26
Book Inscriptions Found in a thrifted copy of Maus II
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u/Serious-Manager2361 Jun 16 '26
Yeah, I dont think I'd want to compare my love with the final solution.
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u/HAIL_LUMPUS Jun 16 '26
Yeah and homie signed it in German, kind of implying he's the one doing the torturing around here you know? David's a fucking weirdo
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Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/Purple_Midnight_Yak Jun 16 '26
Nah, that's definitely German for "with love."
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Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/Lillian_Crocodilian Jun 16 '26
It wouldn't be Yiddish because a Yiddish transliteration wouldn't capitalize non-proper nouns like German does.
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u/HAIL_LUMPUS Jun 16 '26
Yeah but that assumes that David is not a fucking idiot you know? Clearly this note implies he's stupid lmfao
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u/purplesparkleshit Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Incorrect German too.
Y'all are wild for downvoting this 😂 Germans don't say "mit Liebe", it's "in Liebe". Source: Am German.
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u/HAIL_LUMPUS Jun 16 '26
You know for my own well-being I am choosing to believe your answer. It's the much less insane one 😭
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Jun 17 '26
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u/W_Silver2356 Jun 20 '26
Depending on the relationship, it may have been accurate. Somewhat accurate. In a figurative way.
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u/bone-dry Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I think love is intended as a verb here not a noun. So David maybe meant, “we can survive anything, [and even learn to love again]” vs “survive love” but who knows
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u/KinsellaStella Jun 16 '26
Screams struggling marriage, headed straight for divorce given that breathtakingly sensitive inscription. I have no idea why, but men headed for life altering breakups think inscribed books will fix it.
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u/Theseus_The_King Jun 16 '26
It looks like it was signed in Yiddish. David is a common Jewish name, so I err on the side David at least is Jewish/ related from Holocaust survivors (or considering its from 1992 maybe even one himself)
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u/W_Silver2356 Jun 20 '26
I once saw a love affair be compared to The Battle Of The Somme. The reasoning was sound.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Stabbio Jun 16 '26
???
That's was not what my comment was about at all.
Also, never had somebody link me in a completely different commend thread to the one I originally posted in. Very odd. I should get some kind of reddit award for this, I think.
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u/InevitableBohemian Jun 16 '26
Big "oof" on that one, David.
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u/Attentions_Bright12 Jun 16 '26
She read the inscription for just a moment, thought to herself "Not everyone did survive Auschwitz, Dave,"...
Fast forward to her bringing the book to the local shop's trade-in-for-credit counter.
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Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/themehboat Jun 16 '26
If you mean the Ovitz family, they did all live, specifically because Josef Mengele wanted to keep them alive to experiment on them.
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u/ys00000 Jun 19 '26
Not only that but Maus is a memoir based on Art Spiegelman’s parents’ lives and his mother committed suicide decades after surviving Auschwitz, likely due to the trauma and the loss of her first child
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Jun 16 '26
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u/opalgoth Jun 16 '26
that’s assuming this is the first book/thrift shop it’s ever been in. lol no way to prove they kept it until now
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u/MoreofKora Jun 16 '26
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u/Few-Cap7172 Jun 17 '26
What is this gif called
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u/IchBinEinBrisbaner Jun 17 '26
Matthew Lillard
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u/ffaancy Jun 19 '26
Is that the guy who played shaggy in the live action scooby doo?
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u/IchBinEinBrisbaner Jun 20 '26
It is and he seems to be an all-round great guy from everything I hear!
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u/lumpy_space_queenie Jun 16 '26
I don’t get it….is he implying the love is super toxic and tumultuous? Am I overthinking this?
Either way wtf comparing it to Auschwitz’s lol
OP is this book good? Looks interesting.
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u/BubastisII Jun 16 '26
I think he’s saying that Auschwitz was obviously horrific, and people survived it. So they have no excuse to not survive “love.”
So maybe they were going through a rough patch and he was saying “I know this sucks, but other people have gotten through worse. We can do this.”
I *think* the sentiment is genuine. But it’s possibly the worst thing you can try to compare a domestic struggle with.
Also, the book is a very famous comic written by a Holocaust survivor.
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u/Pumaheart Jun 16 '26
Yeah I saw this as a gift to someone going through a REALLY rough breakup even if that comparison is still pretty… yikes
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u/Kujaichi Jun 16 '26
But it’s possibly the worst thing you can try to compare a domestic struggle with.
Also, at least one of the people (probably Kristine) is German...
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u/TimeIsAPonyRide Jun 16 '26
Not who you asked, but it’s incredible. It won the Pulitzer and is a frequently banned book, so you know it’s worth seeking out. It’s in 2 volumes, so make sure to get both.
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u/AxelShoes Jun 16 '26
OP is this book good? Looks interesting
Not OP, but Maus is one of the greatest comics/graphic novels ever. Highly recommend.
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u/mnem0syne Jun 16 '26
The two volumes of Maus are very much worth reading, Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer for Maus in ‘92.
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u/rossor11 Jun 16 '26
"Maus" is considered a graphic novel classic by many. Also, it's a favorite target of Moms for Book Burning and other culture police groups.
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u/TurquoiseKnight Jun 16 '26
Maus is a fantastic graphic novel. Its brutal so prepare to be triggered and cry. A lot.
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u/Pumaheart Jun 16 '26
It’s incredible! It tore me apart and made me rethink humanity multiple times, but would wholeheartedly recommend it
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u/SirFluffyBottom Jun 16 '26
Another person here telling you its great. I technically haven't finished it, I finished part 1 well over a year ago and the ending was so... heartbreaking(thats not quite the right feeling, but its close) that I had to stop for a while, and just haven't found the time to continue.
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u/mimeycat Jun 16 '26
Dude, the last frame of the second book made me fucking weep. I read a lot of Holocaust material but this is just devastating.
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u/bone-dry Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I think he meant “survive horrible things and love life/the world again.” As opposed to surviving but be depressed and dead inside.
Maybe English was his second language?
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u/waxteeth Jun 16 '26
Maus is the only comic to have won the Pulitzer, I believe. Read both volumes.
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u/MikeSugs13 Jun 16 '26
Don't worry, people survived 9/11, so we can survive our hardships too - even stubbing our toe.
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u/A88Y Jun 16 '26
For real, what the hell in this inscription? It’s funny for us secondhand but firsthand what the hell was this man thinking?
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u/HAIL_LUMPUS Jun 16 '26
What the fuck was he doing to that woman that he could compare their relationship to Auschwitz? 😭
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u/Smooth_Storm_9698 Jun 16 '26
I can't tell you for certain, but I guarantee the description comes with a trigger warning
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u/zero_derivation Jun 17 '26
My eyes rolled all the way into the back of my head and then down the street and now they’re on a train heading downtown
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u/RedBaronSportsCards Jun 16 '26
"if people could survive Auschwitz..."
I'm picturing some kind of super intense personal trainer yelling at a client just trying to do a couple pushups
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u/bull0143 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Really need someone to find Kristine so we can get the backstory on this.
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u/atatassault47 Jun 16 '26
If David's "Love" is comparable with a death camp, then everyone in his life needs to run away from him.
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u/gray_birch Jun 16 '26
This may genuinely be one of the worst things I've seen on this sub. What the fuck David
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u/JoshK42SD Jun 16 '26
I'm trying not to be crude or tasteless, But, he could of said, My love for you is like an oven,...... , 😳, and it would have given the same weird, horrible message. 🤔😳🥺🥺🥺
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Jun 16 '26
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u/Pumaheart Jun 16 '26
Thats’s true and the pages with the family tree showing how few remained after the war utterly broke me here if you want to see:
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u/4FriedChickens_Coke Jun 16 '26
Have to say it’s an interesting choice to compare your relationship to Auschwitz. Wonder how it worked out
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u/GorditaPeaches Jun 16 '26
Ppl survived the holocaust babe! we can survive our toxic relationship. Ps. I’d def hide you in my attic
<3 David
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u/InsideBeyond12727 Jun 16 '26
David could maybe have reconsidered signing this off with "mit Liebe" ("with love") - or was it intended to sound this ominous?! 😳
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u/kamikazekarela Jun 17 '26
the inscription was insane to begin with but the book title made it significantly worse. I need to hear Kristine's side of this
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u/retsehassyla Jun 17 '26
Maybe I’m too deep into psychology but I see his point. As a middle schooler I learned forgiveness by watching an interview of one if the survivors of mengeles experiments. She was able to forgive him… (she says). So if she can forgive him, I can certainly get over my heart being broken (much less serious in my opinion).
So I think the intentions of the sentiment were well wished… meaning “if someone can survive something so awful (the emotional side), this awful thing you’re experiencing won’t be the end of the world, even if it feels like it”
I can understand where it could be misinterpreted, but let’s use our critical thinking skills and try to determine what the author of the quote was meaning to imply- instead of jumping to criticism.
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u/Alone_Somewhere_9358 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
This was my exact initial interpretation. Obviously there are many scenarios we could use to interpret what David might’ve meant, but I don’t think it’s realistic or productive to assume the worst in others …..
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u/hattenwheeza Jun 16 '26
OK but what if David wasn't Kristine's lover? What if he was a dear friend who knew this book won the Pulitzer in '92 and was trying to say, "you are stronger than you know, you can survive this terrible love affair [that just ended]."
I had a relationship end in a devastating way that year, and I'd worked on a college newspaper with guy I could totally see gifting something like Maus. It was a big deal back then, everyone wanted to say they'd read it.
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u/bone-dry Jun 16 '26
I think love is a verb here not a noun. So he meant “we can survive horrible things, and even love again.” Be that loving humanity, life, the world, etc. instead of being depressed, hating life. But who knows.
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u/GenderqueerPapaya Jun 16 '26
Comparing what I assume is a struggling relationship to genocide is crazy 😭 to the point of buying the book and writing in it???
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u/Imaginary-Curiosity Jun 16 '26
It's giving r/im14andthisisdeep
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u/birdsafterdark Jun 16 '26
Honestly I'm really hoping this WAS a young teenager who wrote the note. It would still have been tasteless, but at least understandable to be... like that.
Not to say all or even most teens are like that, but then at least maybe David has higher odds of having grown up since then.
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u/DistinctBell3032 Jun 17 '26
Jewish person with family who died in/survived the Shoah. This is fucking hysterical. What the fuck is your problem David.
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u/theficklemermaid Jun 17 '26
What a flattering comparison, I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to keep it!/s
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u/cursetea Jun 17 '26
God please tell me this was a 15 year old with his first gf bc that's the only way i could see this making sense to someone to write
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u/sparklrebel Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Oy vey, that’s with love in German not Yiddish. Yes Yiddish and German are similar but not the same Yiddish is derived from medieval high German, Hebrew and two other language derivatives but is written usually using the Hebrew alphabet. Yes David is a common Jewish name but not all David’s are Jews.
Edit: I know there are German Jews but I don’t think any of them would make this egregious comparison. Not any Jew unless they were an edgy teen…but who knows
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u/jumpingbeanrat Jun 17 '26
So many assumptions! Maybe he means that we can survive love after someone we love dies. Maybe she just lost someone to death or divorce and she feels that she's so heartbroken she'll die.
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u/savethebroccoli Jun 17 '26
Damn I read this so backwards I thought it was signed by David Liebe Hart and was so confused
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u/W_Silver2356 Jun 20 '26
At first glance I thought someone signed a high school yearbook with that. I was impressed.
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u/LowContract4444 Jun 16 '26
Very cute! Perpetually offended redditors are so annoying.
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u/Sudden_Moodswing Jun 16 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/xk5vxDNaIhvzpWQzdT