The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Family Review

Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.Bruno an eight-year-old boy from Berlin, Germany is moved with his mother, Elder sister, SS Commander father to a countryside in Europe where his father powers over a concentration camp for Jews. Bruno went "exploring" one day and befriended a child his age named Shmuel. Shmuel was a Jew. The boy became good friends until Bruno was scheduled to move to a new location.Raised in a loving family in early-1940s Berlin, the wide-eyed eight-year-old boy, Bruno, sees his world turn upside down when his high-ranking Nazi-official father is promoted and accepts an important position as a commander in a strange-looking farm. Now, their new home is surrounded by a high and impenetrable wall; soldiers who are armed to the teeth patrol the perimeter; a dangerous electric fence keeps the intruders away, and, inexplicably, all farmers wear the same striped outfit. However, on the other side of the wire, Shmuel--a shaven-headed Jewish boy of nearly the same age--has so many stories to recount, and he, too, as Bruno, is convinced that the boringly similar uniforms everybody is wearing, are, in fact, pyjamas. Wouldn't it be marvellous if this exciting new friend lived on Bruno's side of the fence?—Nick RiganasSpoiler alert, but all parents should read before.watching with their child (children) Bruno with his family are moved to a home outside a concentration camp. The 8 year old Bruno is very niave and does not realize the reality that surrounds him. We watch as the home tutor teaches Bruno and his older sister (12) that all Jews are evil and bad. Bruno maintains his innocence as his sister becomes more.imbedded in the Nazi culture. Bruno goes exploring and befriends a young boy his own age who lives in the concentration camp. Their friendship evolves and Bruno eventually breaks onto the concentration camp to help Shmoel find his father; as they move around the camp they end up in a hut that is next in line for the gas chamber. Bruno and his friend cannot escape and end up in the chamber. Bruno's father figures it out too late. Extremely emotional. Do not watch this with a child under 16 and even then consider your child's emotional well being.It's sometime during WWII. Naive eight year old Bruno lives a carefree life of privilege in Berlin, he the son of what he only knows as an important "soldier". He, his parents, and his twelve year old sister Gretel move to a grand house in the country when his father gets promoted to a new soldiering job in the area. Beyond missing playing with his friends and seeing his paternal grandparents back in Berlin, Bruno is forbidden to wander to the back of their vast property to do one of his favorite activities of exploring, especially toward the "farm" he could see from his bedroom window before his parents had that window boarded up. He can see that Pavel, the kitchen servant that came with the house, is wearing striped pajamas underneath his street clothes, striped pajamas like all the other people he could see on the farm. Bruno also notices the rancid smell coming from the farm whenever smoke emanates from its pair of tall smokestacks. Further exacerbating Bruno's boredom, his father hires them a tutor whose teaching curriculum is solely history in relation to the current German order. While Gretel laps up their instruction in wanting to impress Lt. Kotler, their young "chauffeur" to who she is attracted, Bruno would still much rather read adventure stories, and have gone to school where he may have met new friends. Eventually, Bruno is able to explore at the back of the property without anyone's knowledge, he making his way to the barbed wire fence of the farm, the fence the barrier between himself and Shmuel, the eight year old boy on the other side he meets and befriends through the wire. Slowly, Bruno's also somewhat naive mother Elsa, Gretel and Bruno come to some realizations about their collective and individual positions within the current German order, Bruno's perspective still with the innocence of a child.—Huggo