The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is a beautiful story that demonstrates just how powerful friendship can be no matter what age or culture. The story takes place during the Holocaust, the book is focused around two eight-year-old boys. One of the boys is named Bruno, Bruno is a bit naïve and can’t really comprehend what’s going on around him. Bruno’s father is a very important man because he is the German commander that is responsible of Auschwitz Camp, and the other boy name is Shmuel. Shmuel is not as naïve as Bruno is he understands a little portion of what’s happening around him. He is a little bit more mature than Bruno. But when your in a situation like Shmuel’s sometimes you just have to grow up. Shmuel is a Jewish inside camp Auschwitz. The two boys soon come together and start a friendship that is refused in the world they’re living in. Bruno use to be a thrilled boy with his life back in Berlin, that was until the family had to move to Poland or what Bruno calls Out-With for the father’s job. Bruno was a very isolated in Out-With since he had to leave all his friend back in Berlin, Bruno had no friends to play with and Shmuel having to live life at a concentration camp where he fights everyday to stay alive. The violence, the misery around him, and probably being separated by everybody he knows and loves, Bruno was the only person that made him feel ecstatic and his life bearable. “’Hello.’ Said Bruno. ‘Hello,’ said the boy”(106). Bruno and Shmuel we’re meant to be friends. When Bruno first met Shmuel he was the only person Bruno could talk to, you could say they we ‘rent the ‘best of the friends’ at first. But their friendship emerges as Bruno starts coming to Shmuel everyday and talking to him. As their friendship emerges his “best friends” back in Berlin start to tarnish away. Bruno starts spending a lot of time with Shmuel, sneaking out of the house everyday just to see him. Bruno actually admits that Shmuel is his best friend at the end