The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

This world-famous YA novel is both easy and hard to read, but I’m glad I did. Author John Boyne decided to tell this fictionalised version of the Holocaust through the eyes of a nine year-old German boy, who has no understanding of the final solution or anti-semitism. He has described it as more of a ‘fable’ than historical fiction, and I think that sums up it’s structure and powerful message perfectly. Throughout the story, allusions to it’s wider context are cleverly written - but I would still be hesitant to offer this book up to anyone under the age of 12 without an adult reading alongside to explain it’s meaning and significance. I felt that reading it as an adult (who hasn’t read a huge amount about the holocaust) was heart wrenching.

On the other hand, I’ve read many reviews that have posited two major (and very valid) flaws - firstly, the two main characters (Bruno and his sister Gretel) are supposed to be nine and 12, but they read much much younger (more like 6 and 8). It feels like an injustice to a lot of 9 and 12 year olds who would’ve known at least some of what was happening in the world around them. Secondly, this is a very unrealistic story. Many of the wire fences around concentration camps were electric, there was always no-mans land on either side and watch-towers posted along the perimeters with soldiers ready to shoot anyone who approached. Some survivors feel this book tried to make the holocaust ‘cuter’, and did a disservice to those made to suffer through hell on earth.

The fable is set in the fourties, and whilst the war rages on Bruno and his older sister the ‘hopeless case’ are moved from their five storey house in central Berlin to Camp ‘Out-With’ with their parents and household staff; all because their father is high up in the German Army. All Bruno knows is that he’s lost his three best friends, and there are no shops to speak of or boys to play with in this new (measly three-storied) house. Eventually after some adventuring, Bruno meets a new friend who lives on the other side of a long barbed-wire fence and wears strange striped pyjamas, a Jewish boy called Shmuel who was born on the same day as him. They become fast friends, until (spoiler) after a year of conversations with a fence separating them, Bruno crawls underneath and dresses in the striped pyjamas for one last bout of exploration before moving back to Berlin.

…Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel’s hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.

Through an intelligent use of parallel universes and a deliberate avoidance of explicitly detailing violence or injustice (instead just referring to ‘incidents’ or physical marks leftover), the story maintains its painful innocence. I think that overall Boyne’s attempt to help younger contemporary audiences understand the holocaust is a very worthy cause, and the narrative is certainly gripping. I remain unsure where I stand in relation to it’s factually incorrect/slightly condescending points versus it’s appeal as a fable, but either way I found it a worthy read.