The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas written by John Boyne Bruno had to move away from his house in Berlin. At nine-years old he could hardly argue with his father about it. His mother told him that his father had a very important job that required they move. Bruno didn't know what his father did, but, if it required them to stay at their new home at Out-with, he thought his father should get a knew job because Out-with was horrible and his three best friends weren't there. I wish I could tell you this book was about a homesick boy, but it is not.
This story is focused on Bruno's point of view. From where he stands he knows Out-with is a bad place, he knows that his father works for the Fury, and he knows that the people wearing stripped pajama's live behind the fence at a distance from his three story house. The reader is the one that realizes what is going on. The reader can see and understand what nine-year-old Bruno cannot. We know that Out-with is Auschwitz, one of the most infamous concentration camps residing in Poland. We know that Bruno's father is a high rank Nazi working for the Führer. The reader also knows that the people in the stripped pajamas are the persecuted Jews. John Boyne tells the reader all of this without the words "Auschwitz" or "Concentration camp", or "Führer", or even "Nazi". As we see Bruno go about his business adjusting to the move the reader gets a new perspective of the Holocaust. Bruno doesn't understand a lot that is going on, but as the story progresses he befriends Shmuel, a boy wearing stripped pajamas, and he starts to understand more important things. He and Shmuel meet at the fence and talk. He sees that he and his new friend are very similar. They even have the same birthday! However, it is clear to Bruno that his friend is much skinnier than he and his eyes always look sad, but he can't understand why. He is later told by his older sister, the Hopeless Case, that the pajama people are Jews and their family and the soldiers are the Opposite. Through Bruno's eyes he doesn't see the difference. Both the soldiers and the Jews wear uniforms. What makes them different? This can be related to a Dr. Seuss story. In The Sneetches the bird like creatures are discriminated on account of who has a star on their bellies and who doesn't. Why should one characteristic distinguish one Sneetch from another or one human from another? This is what Bruno is trying to understand.
I read this book with a smile on my face. The innocence of a nine-year-old is warming and exciting. I wore this smile until the end made my heart ache like a strong, cold, and clammy hand had slithered between my ribs and coiled its fingers around my heart and compressed it. There are astounding and terrible stories told of the Holocaust and this is one of them because of the way Boyne reveals the concentration camps to a reader who cannot fully imagine the horrors, like Bruno. If you read this when you are young The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas may just be about a homesick boy making a friend, but you would be missing one amazing story.
