The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - 紀佳妤

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Introduction:

Berlin 1942
When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.
But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
(sources: official website)

I was wondering how a story about the boy in the striped pyjamas can be when I first saw this book. It sounds like a children book but its cover, with only three plain colors which are far from bright, seems to convey the idea that it’s not going to end up happily ever after. It was not until I finished the reading did I realize it is about a serious topic.

The striped pyjamas in this book are symbolic of criminals who did nothing wrong but just were born to be. Those criminals are the Jew. Shmuel, nine-year-old, is one of those in the striped pyjamas. He was found by Bruno, who was on his exploring journey around his new home ‘Out-With.’ Bruno’s father, a general, was promoted to be in charge of the concentration camp and that’s why Bruno’s family moved to near the camp and why Bruno would ever have a chance to meet Shmuel. With an electric fence which emblems a barrier between two ethnic groups in between, the two little boys became good friends, though. Bruno, a Christian, and Shmuel, a Jew, treat each other with true heart and pure spirit, which is the very part that brings about the most conflicting point.

When Bruno put on the striped pyjamas and crept through the small hole under the fence for the purpose of seeking Shmuel’s missing father, he became a member of the concentration camp unexpectedly. Bruno’s sincerity toward his best friend is somehow a gradual process to death. The identity of Bruno, in essence, didn’t shift, but in the striped pyjamas Bruno is no longer a german general’s son but an innocent victim under the prevailing racism at that time as the same case in which Shmuel was turned into a criminal from a guiltless Polish little boy.

I felt an excruciatingly pain when I read the last paragraph of chapter nineteen: ...Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel’s hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go. My eyes were flooded with tears since I was touched deeply within, especially when I saw the movie adapted from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Bruno and Shmuel held hands tightly and in their hands were faith in each other. It’s certainly a sorrowful image that in the dark were two pairs of eyes of naivete and fearlessness and the next second two little boys vanished from this world along with numerous lives. Simultaneously the horrifying, brutal and atrocious execution was gnawing away my conscience. I felt guilty for what germans did in the duration of world war. However, Bruto’s father, a blind patriot, is another kind of victim of the time. A father himself caused the death of his son, which is absolutely of great agony for a parent.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a powerful story but is simply told. It’s strange that while the sentences are seemingly effortless, it’s difficult to read. Still, I’d like to recommend this book to everyone. It’s even far more sarcastic to look at the event that happened back in the period of world war two through children’s pure eyes.