‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’: Lessons Too Important to Ignore

The film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is just out on DVD this week, and I confess I was eagerly anticipating its release, having missed its run in theaters. I rented it and watched it Wednesday evening.

Based on the children’s novel of the same name by John Boyne, it tells the story of eight-year-old Bruno, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi. Dad is transferred from his post in Berlin to head a work (read: final solution) camp, and the family is uprooted to the countryside. Bored out of his skull after a few weeks of little to do and no one to play with but his older sister, Bruno defies his mother’s orders to stay in the front yard and sneaks out back to explore. He comes upon the camp, which he thinks is a farm (Bruno is sheltered from the realities of his father’s work) and meets Shmuel, a boy his age on the other side of the fence, wearing what Bruno thinks are “striped pajamas.” Despite being separated by electrified barbed wire, the two boys strike up a friendship that holds fast despite the obvious adversity and future problems that arise. (more…)