re: Literature that should be required reading for anyone referencing the Holocaust

IIRC, only Anne Frank's father survived.

Maus is literally told from the perspective of Spiegelman's father Jakob. It not only goes into his time in the camps, but also his struggles readjusting after the liberation.

There's one particular panel that really stood out. One of his fellow captives had two sons in the SS, and Art asked his father why he wouldn't be depicted as a cat? The response was, "to the guards, all prisoners were jews".

I haven't read it in a while, but I think Jakob was spared because he spoke English, German, and Polish, so he was useful to the guards.