The Boy in Striped Pyjamas written by John Boyne

The book “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas” is situated during the second world war when all the Jews were sent to concentration camps because of Hitler. this is the story of a 9-year-old German boy called Bruno that who is by himself when separated from his friends back in his old town Berlin. so when he meets a polish boy named Shmuel they have a strong friendship although Shmuel shouldn’t be talking to Bruno because he is in the concentration camp. Bruno sticks with Shmuel throughout the whole story and even decides to dress in the striped Pyjamas that Shmuel is wearing so that he can pretend to be part of the concentration camp when they get led to the gas chamber.

The main theme that is addressed in this book is “Friendship” in the book the theme of friendship is very evident between the two boys when they first meet through the fence, this Separates Bruno’s life with Shmuel who is involved in the concentration camps. even though they are both in very completely and separate lives where there should not be any interaction between them they really need each others company because of there loneliness during this time of the war. Many times throughout the book we can see this when the Shmuel is working at Bruno’s house as a servant and Bruno hands him food, although he denies giving this to him even though Shmuel still gets punished. through the book, these two boys form a strong bond which is strong enough that Bruno risks his life to follow Shmuel to the concentration camp they both end up dying in the gas chamber together. Another main theme in this book was the theme of “Race”, this theme was everywhere throughout the book this is because is because it was a big play in the Holocaust. The Jewish people were a target for the Nazis and this showed during the story because Shmuel is the Jewish who is good friends with a nazis son (Bruno). until the end of the story, Bruno doesn’t realise that the fence separating him and the boy was because it was a concentration camp. Bruno had grown up hearing that Germans seemed to be the best this is because his father was a Nazi who had soldiers all around there house and would take people like Shmuel to be their slaves.

The boy in Striped Pyjamas connects with the rest of the world in a historical way, this is because it teaches up about what happens between the Nazi Germans and the people that are in the concentration camp that is run by these nazis. This fictional story takes place in another time during the early 1940’s in a historical setting in Berlin and Auschwitz during the world war two. The Nazis believed that they were the best people and could take advantage of anyone and that all other races should be killed, a large murder of over 6 million European dues was committed by the Nazis and this is how the text connects with the world in a historical way when we see Schmuel trapped in a concentration camp that we find out is run by the father of Bruno.

This text teaches us about the society that the European Jews lived a horrible life in the concentration camps before they were sent to the gas chambers to be murdered. We also are taught that the Nazi Germans are not nice people they are very controlling and think they are the most superior people that lived. This shows us that the world we live in does not treat people evenly and that some people think that they are better then others for example what Bruno’s family thought of Schmuel and other people that were like him in the concentration camp.  “when we were told we couldn’t live in our house we had to move to a different part of Cracow, where the soldiers built a big wall and my mother and father and my brother and I all had to live in one room.” this is what Schmuel said when he remembered what happened to him before him and his family had to move to Auschwitz and that they were told by the Nazis that they couldn’t live somewhere, this shows us they were not free and that this was the start of there entrapment. with this quote, it really teaches us that some people don’t have a choice and that people are ignorant of what some horrible people (in this case the Nazis) are to others. this also teaches us about society that the majority of the time horrible things do not do any good to yourself in the future and that we should not do evil things or put people through things like this in the real world: an example of this in the story was when brunos father learns fels the greive and loss when he looses his son from going into the gas chamber unknown of what was going to happen to him with Schmuel.

This text connects to my veiwpoints because i belove that all people should be treated equally unless they have done bad themselves. The reader of the book knows that this is not what is happening and the Jews are not being treated equeally to the Nazis, people are steryotyped into different genres in which they are discriminated against. this connects to me beacuse we are all entitlaed to basic rights and that the way the Jews were treated through this story in the concentration camps were not correct.

I would definatley recommend this text to anoyone and everyone that would like to gain a understanding of what happens to people that are not treated respectfully and people that want to learn what happened to people like Schmuel and what his best friend had to go through

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. Good, Ava. You now need to give your personal response to the text.

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