Max harbors an intense feeling of survivor's guilt because he was the sole member of his family that managed to escape the Nazis on Kristallnacht. He spent the next few years in hiding, but was eventually caught and shipped to Auschwitz...fortunately he managed to survive until the war ended and he was set free, with a tattoo on his arm as a permanent souvenir so that he would never be able to forget the nightmare.

Note - the other art I've done of Max Steinmarder has all been before he was captured, since he spent most of WWII successfully hiding from Hitler (he wasn't in the camp for very long before the war ended). This is my first post-war drawing of him.

And on a lighter note - not sure how evident it is in this particular drawing, but I changed his facial markings slightly, adding a little white spot on both cheeks next to the larger white patch on his jaw, since I've noticed that many stone martens have them. Not sure yet whether I'm going to keep his markings like this...