In 1925, Mein Kampf was published by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In this autobiography, from which Nazi racist ideas originated, he described his struggle with the Jews in Germany. These ideas sparked World War II and the genocide of the Jews. The tragedy of the Holocaust has inspired authors, such as Art Spiegelman who produced a graphic novel, where both text and images helped him convey his ideas and messages. Indeed, Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus is an effective means of telling the Holocaust narrative and particularly his father's story of survival. Through this medium, he is able to captivate readers while providing an interesting insight into the tragedy of the Holocaust by using animal symbols, the contrast between realism and cartoon imagery, and the various basic elements of a graphic novel. First, Art Spiegelman represents humans as animals to show how the Nazis classified the world based on race, which is of historical importance to the Holocaust narrative. In Book II, page. 11, plate 1, Art drew a sketch of several animals to represent the characters in his father's story. In Maus each animal represents a different community. For example, mice represented Jews, cats represented Nazi Germans, and pigs represented Poles. With this portrayal in mind, the choice of Jews represented as rats demonstrated that the Nazis viewed them as parasites. According to the Nazis, the Jews were parasites because they were everywhere and acted secretly to harm the Germans. Furthermore, Jews were portrayed in Nazi propaganda as devious people who would steal food and money. For these reasons the author chose to represent the Jewish community as mice to show the Nazi point of view of the time. Additionally, the symbolism of cats as predators and mice as prey is depicted. Overall, mice symbolize victims because they cannot defend themselves.