The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Research Paper

The Holocaust is said to have lasted six and a half years. That’s six and a half years of people dying of diseases, starvation, exposure, brutality, and execution. Eleven million people were murdered during this time period because they weren’t considered “the perfect race”. Out of this eleven million, an estimated six million were of the Jewish population. The Holocaust was considered the time of depression for Jews. Adolf Hitler thought the perfect race were blond(e)s with blue eyes. He also blamed Jews for the loss of WWll and placed as many men as they could capture into concentration camps. These concentration camps murdered Jews everyday. They were forced into working long, harsh days with little to no food to survive on. Bruno was a
nine year old German boy whose father was one of the top commanding officers of the Nazi’s. He and his family were placed in a house right along the fence line of Auschwitz, the biggest, and most brutal concentration camp. This is where Bruno met his best friend for life, Shmuel, also nine years old. The only difference between these two boys was Shmuel was Jewish. It was a tragic thing that Bruno was naive because he had developed bad habits, and Bruno was killed.
In The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it was bad that Bruno was naive because he had developed bad habits.
Some of these include him lying about where he was going, sneaking around his property and to the fence, lying about knowing Shmuel, sneaking food out to him. “One afternoon, as he was filling his pockets with some bread and cheese from the kitchen fridge to take with him, Maria came in and stopped when she saw what he was doing” (Boyne 134). The bad habit of lying wasn’t too serious in the beginning of the novel. He had lied to mother about going outside to play, when really he’d be going to see Shmuel. Then progressively, the lies got worse and more serious, and soon he lied about knowing Shmuel and he even let him take the blame and punishment for eating the food Bruno insisted on giving him. His one and final lie to his mother was hours before his final words. He had insisted on going to play outside, and who knew it would be the last time that he would ever speak to his mother again?
Another reason Bruno’s innocence was poor was the fact that his innocence basically caused him to die. He was so uninvolved in the situation that he marched right into his death. In The Boy in The Striped Pajamas Shmuel and Bruno, being young boys who loved to explore, went looking for papa, and were in the wrong spot in the wrong time. The Nazi soldiers had every Jew in the surrounding area line up and start a
march.
Little did they know, the march was right into a gas chamber:
Just as he said this, his feet brought him up a set of steps, and as he marched on the ground he found there was no more rain coming down anymore because they were all piling into a long room that was surprisingly warm and must have been very securely built because no rain was getting in anywhere. In fact it felt completely airtight. (Boyne 211-212) Not only did they disobey rules by crossing the fence, but they weren’t supposed to interact at all in the first place. It was a tragic thing that happened to Bruno and his best friend, but in all odds, they had it coming.
On the other hand, others believe it was a good thing for Bruno to be naive about the Holocaust because it allowed him to develop a friendship with Shmuel. If Bruno had stayed inside of Out-With all of the time instead of exploring, he wouldn’t have met his best friend for life, and he would have been depressed for his time being at Out-With. Before Bruno and Shmuel died, Bruno made a comment that throughout the book, he had used less and less. He had called Shmuel his final best friend for life. “‘You’re my best friend, Shmuel . . .My best friend for life’” (Boyne 213). Although it was good for him to grow fond with someone while he was there, his friend unfortunately was one of the ultimate causes for his death. Him being friends with Shmuel put both of their lives in jeopardy. It was a tragic thing that Bruno was naive because he not only lost his own life, but his best friends life too.
In conclusion, many believe it was a good thing for Bruno to meet someone he’d know for the rest of his life, but this person was one of the eventual causes for his bad habits, and really, his death. Before Bruno had met Shmuel, he was a good kid. He didn’t lie as much, he most definitely didn’t steal food as much, and he didn’t sneak around. His sneaking around with Shmuel marched both of them right into a gas chamber, and dying. Lastly, it wasn’t a good thing for Bruno to be so uninvolved and naive, for had he not, he could have potentially saved both of their lives.