Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a comic written by Art Spiegelman which tells the stories of his Jewish father, Valek, living in Nazi controlled Poland. The story is told through Art's point of view while listening to his father recount what happened. The most unique part of this comic is that the Jews are represented as mice and the Nazis are shown as cats. This passage of the comic describes Valek telling the story of when the majority of the Jews in his town were taken away to Auschwitz. This comic was written to document the cruelties that were forced upon the Jewish people by using symbolism, perspective, color, and repetition. 

The most striking aspect of this comic is that it tells a historical event, but humans are not even characters in the story. The mice and cats are symbols which are used to represent the oppression of the Nazis. Mice were chosen to represent the Jews because mice are often thought of as innocent and timid. Cats were chosen to symbolize the Nazis because cats are thought of as predators who prey on mice. These symbols serve two purposes for the story. Primarily, they make the story more interesting. There have been many biographies written about survivors of the Holocaust, but a comic with mice and cats as characters provides a different and entertaining take. Secondly, these symbols help to reinforce the theme that the Nazis were unjust oppressors on an innocent group of people. In the relationship between cats and mice, cats are dominant and mice are subordinate. That is why these were the animals that were chosen to represent the Nazis and the Jews. These symbols reinforce the concept that the Jews were oppressed by the Nazis.

The perspective of this story also helps to support the theme that the Jewish people were oppressed by the Nazis. The story is told through the eyes of Valek Spiegelman, a Jewish man in Nazi controlled Poland. Because the narrator is a Jew, the reader can see firsthand what it was like for those who were being mistreated. If the story were to be told from a Nazi or third person's point of view, the story would not have the same emotional appeal. Since the story is told from a Jew's perspective, the reader can see what the people who were oppressed felt, thought, and did during all of atrocities. This helps support the theme because it appeals to the reader's emotions in a way that facts can not.

Another aspect of this comic that helps support the theme is the color. This comic is done in black and white and most of it contains dark shades of gray. Dark colors are often thought of as depressing, so it is clear why Spiegelman chose to do most of this comic in dark tones. The pain and suffering experienced by the Jews would not have been well represented by bright colors. In some frames, the Nazis are displayed as white while the Jews are displayed as black or dark gray. This is done to show the contrast between the Jews and the Nazis and suggests that the Nazis are superior to the Jews. The Jews are always drawn in black or dark gray to symbolize the pain that they are going through.

Repetition is also used to help display the horrors committed by the Nazis. In this passage tens of thousands of Jews are ordered to meet in a stadium where it will be decided whether they can stay in the town or if they will go to a concentration camp. In these frames there are dozens of mice shown and they are all drawn the same way. They all have the same faces, shading, clothes, and bodies. This was done to represent how the Nazis treated the Jews. The Nazis didn't see the Jews as people but rather as animals with no individuality. In concentration camps the Nazis shaved all the prisoner's heads and dressed them in the same bleak clothes. The repetition in the drawings of the mice shows how the Nazis stripped the Jews of their individuality. This is another aspect of the comic that is symbolic of the cruelty that the Jews were subjected to. 

The comic Maus: A Survivor's Tale uses various literary and visual elements to display the theme that the Jews were oppressed by the Nazis. It uses mice and cats to represent the Jews and Nazis and the unfair treatment of the Jews. Also, it is told in first person so that the reader can understand what the Jews felt while going through this experience. Dark colors are used to set a depressing and hopeless tone. Repetition is used in the drawings to suggest the lack of individuality of the Jews. Although everyone knows of the atrocities committed by the Nazis on the Jews, it is important to remember them through literature. Many different elements are used in this comic to represent the sorrow that the Jews went through. 

