The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

I've always enjoyed reading historical fiction and this book came well-recommended. I did feel hesitant at first because I felt that maybe I'd read one book too many with the Holocaust as its setting but I found out that it was told from a different point-of-view so I went ahead and read it..

The story is told from the perspective of Bruno, a naive 9-year old German boy, who walks in to his room one day to find their maid packing all his stuff into crates. When he asks her what she's doing, she directs him to his mother who tells him that his father has received a promotion from the "Fury" (Führer) and that their family will be moving to "Out-With" (Auschwitz) for his new assignment.

Their new home in "Out With" is relatively small,  lacking the beauty and comfort of their old home in Berlin. Behind the house, there is a large, dusty, barbwire-topped fenced-in area where Bruno can see people walking around in striped pajamas. He eventually decides to go out and explore the place where he meets a boy on the other side of the fence named Shmuel, who is the exact same age as he is, and they become friends. They talk frequently over the course of about a year, sharing snippets of their lives but Bruno never fully grasps what Shmuel's life is like behind the fence.

One day, Bruno's mother is able to convince her husband that "Out-With" is no place for children and that they should return to Berlin. Bruno shares the sad news with Shmuel. To spend their final day together, they decide that Bruno would slip over to Shmuel's side of the fence so that they could explore the place as well as to try and find Shmuel's father who had been missing for days.

On the appointed day, Bruno crawls under the flimsy fence to other side where Shmuel gives him a pair of pajamas to wear. They barely get very far when Nazi soldiers round up a group of Jews, the two boys included, and send them into a room. The lights suddenly go out and the sound of showers being turned on begins.

Although Bruno's youthful innocence and ignorance seemed a bit exaggerated, it served to make the entire story endearing and, in the end, heartbreaking. I can't say I enjoyed this book because it touches a very terrible part of our history but it was definitely an easy, fast-paced, well-written read.


Mood Music: This Train Revised by Indigo Girls