The Holocaust In The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

The Holocaust seems to have become a common trope in cinema and literature recently rather than the focus. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an example of how the Holocaust is being used as a vehicle for the plot of stories rather than the plot itself. Though the movie engages the audience and does a wonderful job of making the viewer sympathize and agonize over the tragedy of a Nazi family, the glaring inaccuracies and over-assumption of innocence show that the movie is not actually one about the Holocaust. Instead, it uses the Holocaust as a plot device to tell the unlikely tragedy of a Nazi family, two eight year old boys’ friendship, and their shared tragedy. The most blatant and misleading inaccuracy in the film in the character Shmuel.

The story seeks to make the argument that children are not born with prejudice and hate, but they are instead taught those ways of thinking. However, to make this point the story suspends much of reality in order to bring about an unlikely friendship between Bruno and Shmuel. However, even though the message is clearly a good one, it severely misrepresents the life during the Holocaust and could mislead uneducated viewers about the level of danger and cruelty in the camps. This begs the question: is it moral to use the Holocaust to teach a lesson if in the process the truth of the Holocaust is muddled and softened? Do these inaccuracies not give the viewer the impression that a child could survive fairly well in a camp and possibly escape? This does not do justice for the one and a half million children who perished during the Holocaust. Furthermore, it paints the Nazi family in a light that offers them plausible deniability. This seems to pass all responsibility to the SS officers in charge. Despite the fact that not every German knew of the activities in concentration camps, the whole of the German people share a responsibility for the atrocities of the Holocaust, from which the movie seems to absolve