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It is hard for someone to fully immerse themselves into a movie when they have to suspend so much belief in the story. Although Bruno and Shmuel are both only eight, it is hard to believe that they would be as clueless as to what is happening. Shmuel lived in the concentration camp and seemed to have no idea what was going on inside it. It is also hard to believe that Bruno, being as curious as he is, would not have tried eavesdropping on his father’s meetings. It is also convenient that none of the guards ever caught them sitting by the fence or that, Bruno’s mother did not notice that he has been disappearing every day. Another unbelievable aspect is how Bruno was able to easily enter into the camp. The camps were meant to be well guarded, and if it were that easy for a boy to enter, it would have been easy for anyone to leave.…
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, directed by Mark Herman, is the story of a young boy named Bruno, who is apart of a wealthy German family. Bruno's father is a SS officer and they live right off a concentration camp. Bruno befriends a young prisoner, Shmuel, behind the prison fence. The boys are the same age, however, as their friendship develops, Bruno realizes how different his life is from Shmuel's. When Bruno is told he is moving, he goes back to the fence to say goodbye to Shmuel. This time Bruno brings a shovel, so he can experience the other side of the fence before he has to leave. Coincidently, the prison camp officers corral the prisoners to be taken to the gas chambers. Bruno, wearing the striped uniform, is mistakenly shuffled in with the crowd headed to their death. Neither boy knows what is happening until they are locked inside the chamber. The lights go off and the boys meet their fate. Being a fictional film, critiques can only go so far. This does not mean that fictional films cannot be held to the same standards. I would argue that the recurring Holocaust films created with the signature, American, happy-ending only creates more trivialization of this tragedy. While The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does not have a normal happy ending, it ends with Bruno being seen as a…
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a book that really made an impact on me. The book is very well written and made you feel a real emotional connection with the characters in the book. The book was so emotionally impacting that it actually made me cry and want to throw the book across the room. What happens in this book is that two little boys, one, the son of a german Nazi, and the other a Jewish little boy, meet and they become the best of friends, but there is a twist. Bruno and Shmuel don’t seem to really understand what was going on at the time.…
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The story starts off in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. Eight-year-old Bruno and his family move to the countryside because his father was in charge of a concentration camp in Germany called Auschwitz. One day when Bruno was exploring an area that his parents said was out of bounds he came a cross a fence where a boy his age was on the other side. Bruno quickly becomes friends with this boy, Shmuel, and day after day Bruno visits him at the “farm”. Shmuel decided to tell Bruno that his father is missing and Bruno vows to help him find him. The next day the boys meet at the fence and Bruno changes into the striped pajamas that Shmuel provided and then climbs under the fence into the “farm”. As the boys search the rooms for Shmuel’s father they…
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The prisoners of concentration camps faced and witnessed death daily, and so their primitive survival instincts became so strong over time that their own life mattered more than their family or anyone else's. They would do anything to survive. Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a memoir about his life in concentration camps during the time of the holocaust. Before going to the concentration camps, Eliezer is a normal boy with a loving family who would do anything for him, and he would do anything for them. Throughout his experience during the Holocaust, he witnesses prisoners sacrifice others, even family members to help ensure their survival. Elie too at times thinks of participating in these events with his own father. The harshness and horrendous environment of the Holocaust and its concentration camps led the prisoners to fight for survival. "In this place, it is every man for himself, and you can not think of others. Not even your father. In this place there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. (110) All of these moments of cruelty are provoked by the conditions the prisoners are forced to endure. In order to save themselves, these sons sacrifice their fathers, and their fathers sacrifice their sons. Thus throughout the story, the characters self-preservation is shown in many different ways.…
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Because Elie and Bruno come from very different origins, their perspective in the stories are very different. Being taken out of his home and put through the terrors of a concentration camp, Elie and the other Jews involved saw Nazis as extremely horrid people. The Nazi soldiers were the antagonists in Night. However, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Bruno and the rest of his family were Germans, even his father was a Nazi soldier. Bruno and his family throughout most of the story had no idea what the Nazis were doing to the Jews; they saw the Nazis as people helping their country. Not until the end of the movie did the family realize the terrible things the Nazis were doing to the Jews.…
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The main themes of the movie that stand out the most but are certainly not limited to is, innocent and complicity. Though he attends school and his father is a high ranking Nazi official, Bruno is mostly ignorant of the political situation at the time. When Bruno leaves Berlin he wonders why he left to be near the camp full of people in striped pajamas. Another example is the fact that he has no idea what is going on in the camp or Germany and also thinks Shmuel lives in the concentration camp with his family. That is abruptly changed when he actually goes inside to look for Shmuel’s father and realizes its not like the video about the camps. Even though Bruno’s mother is not thrilled at her husband’s job, she does not actively fight his decision to move the family. Through her not protesting and like many Germans, they complied with, did not interfere or think about the harsh realities of what the Nazis are doing. Also Bruno, Gretel or the mother doesn’t do anything when Kotler beats Pavel to death, they continue to eat through…
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During the Second World War the Nazis were cleansing the Jewish population of Europe. In the book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne he writes about a Jewish boy named Shmuel and a German boy named Bruno. Shmuel is a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp named Auschwitz and Bruno’s father is a high-ranking member of the Nazi forces station at Auschwitz. The two boys somehow become friends despite the stupendous odds set against each other by the German forces, "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life” (Boyne 213). This quote shows the strength Bruno has to stay with Shmuel to the end even though he is considered less equal as Bruno. When Bruno was at home talking to his father about Shmuel says, “The people I see from the window. In the huts, in the distance. They're all dressed the same. Ah, those people, Those people... well, they're not people at all, Bruno"(Boyne 53). Brunos innocence is shown is this quote from him having no idea what is going on in the world at the time, and through his eyes he sees everyone as…
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Over the course of history it was taught through textbooks and actual footage of what occurred, but now in this time period movies have been made to recreate the footage in modern times. Debates over the years has been is history actually being portrayed accurately and if it gives accurate knowledge of the event. Producers of television series and movies of this generation have become the most powerful historians. Movies expose the viewer to possibly see what history was truly resembling, or it can even give a singularity of knowledge. Hollywood created many motion pictures about previous events, but added in things that was not a part in the true event. During 1989 in the New York Times, it was discussed if movies can accurately grasp the understanding of history. Richard Bernstein researched Mississippi Burning stating it showed violence with realistic detail, but it transformed one of the key events of the recent American experience of the civil workers. During The Final Days it was a highly imaginative reconstruction of the end of Richard Nixon’s final presidency, yet the television series showed accurate knowledge on the tense issue of history (Bernstein). The fictional fable of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas created a motion picture of a representation of the time period of the Holocaust. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas accurately represents the Holocaust and what occurred to all the Jewish Orthodox, yet inaccurately represents history with the impossible actions with the overall plot.…
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Bruno has a friendship with Shmuel that is unconditional, and unbound by prejudice or misconceptions. His innocence as a child allows him to accept Shmuel as just another boy, and not a Jewish demon like his father would’ve wanted him to believe through his innocence. “It's so unfair, I don't see why I have to be stuck over here on this side of the fence where there's no one to talk to and no one to play with and you get to have dozens of friends are probably playing for hours every day, I'll have to speak to Father about it.” Bruno said.. Shmuel although imprisoned, views Bruno not as symbol of the oppression and tyranny that has him locked in a camp, but just as another boy who happens to be on the other side of a…
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The holocaust impacted Bruno’s life greatly. First- he had to move from his hometown because his dad is a soldier. When he gets there he has absolutely no clue what is going on in his country. In their home they have Jews that work for them but Bruno just thinks he is a farmer. Schmuel and Bruno’s friendship is forbidden so that affects Bruno because he really cares about Schmuel but can’t do anything to help him. Also at the end of the movie Bruno ends up dying because of the Holocaust.…
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This is why the quote strongly relates to the overall meaning of the story. Many of the events that occurred during the story could have been prevented if everyone had stayed true to themselves and not try to pretend to be someone they knew they weren’t. If Bruno’s father treated the other Jewish children as he would have treated Bruno he wouldn’t have lost his son in such an ironic situation. His father let his uniform become like an alternate ego and that alternate ego slowly became who he truly was. In this story everyone seemed to let what they wore take over them and turn them into someone they didn’t intend to…
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Are physical or mental barriers necessary in life? Are they there to protect us, or to hide secrets from us? John Boyne explains in his novel that barriers are made to temporarily hold us back from secrets in life. But in the end, our minds will demolish the barrier dividing us from the truth. Bruno, a young boy in the novel, learns this first hand. He is presented with a physical barrier, separating him from his home and hundreds of people. His father implants Bruno with a mental barrier, telling him that he cannot go on the other side of the fence. In the end Bruno’s interest in the fence took over and destroyed both barriers leading him to a path full of answers. Barriers are made in life to keep the truth hidden, they are lies built on lies.…
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In 1939, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, causing millions of Jewish people to fear for their lives. First, every citizen, German, and Jew, had to complete a census, which included their race, ancestry, and religion. Second, each person was forced to carry ID cards everywhere they went, and the Jews were made to the star of David on their clothes.Lastly the Nuremberg race laws were created, which took all of the Jewish people's rights away. These laws also contributed to the Jews then being put in the ghettos and ultimately, concentration camps. The event of the Holocaust affected thousands of people by embedding a sense of fear due to the creation of the Gestapo, which lead to terror and destruction for many Jewish families, and by ultimately…
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This quote is not appropriate for the film because in the film Bruno goes and see a film clip made by the Germans as a joke. And even after seeing it, all the men in the room are laughing about it he still did not understand what was actually going on. So this quote is not appropriate because as the quote says, “childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights,” and Bruno is not the only child in the movie. Bruno’s sister is only a little bit older than him and she believes everything completely.…
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