The novel by John Boyne “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ is touching and disturbing narration of friendship of two boys in the middle of Second World War. It tells the story of eight-year-old German boy Bruno whose family move to a new house just outside the boundaries of a concentration camp where his father becomes an infamous SS Commandant. Here we meet Gerald’s nine-year-old son Bruno, who forms an unlikely friendship with a Jewish boy locked in the camp who wears striped pajamas because of the title of the book.
When the two boys developing friendly relationship and supporting one another through their pain and suffering, the viewer is again and again thinking about the fact of the victory of the love over hatred and xenophobia. Friendship, loyalty, and the aspiration for a higher rank interweave in the narrative to create a compelling story of good camaraderie and betrayal, and by the end of the novel the reader is left with a tale of admirable friendship, and a terrible heartbreaking ending and a moral thated one of the most difficult choices possible.
As a result of Bruno’s perspective, it becomes impossible not to understand the horror of the holocaust and the results of obeying unadulterated evil. Sorman switches the ethic of responsibility to the ethical problem of seeing and not seeing and this is in my view the greatest strength of the book. All in all it is a good read and a good read to remind people about the events, which took place in the past and to learn the lessons from them .
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