The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Chapter Summaries

In this book, a young boy was upset when he finds out that his family has to move due to his father’s new job in the German military. Their new home is in the middle of now where and Bruno has no friends to play with and nothing to do. So he decides to explore the boundaries around his home. After exploring, he comes across an odd fence place next door to his family’s home. After awhile of exploring and stuff, Bruno ends up making a friend, but the only problem is that his friend is trapped behind a fence.

One day Bruno comes home from school one day and found out that his family was preparing to move. Bruno has always lived in Berlin; therefore his is very depressed by the move. Bruno’s depression increases when he finds out that his family is moving out in the middle of nowhere and is much smaller than their other

house. Bruno really doesn’t want to move, so he begs his father to return to their pervious house in Berlin, but his father explains that his job has been moved to a new place and it is very important for the father, so staying where they are helps his father career. Out of Bruno’s bedroom window he can see an old-fenced place next door to his family’s house where lots of children appear to live. Bruno decides to show his sister the view and they both realized that those people are not all kids, they are people wearing clothes that look likes striped pyjamas. Bruno was wondering who those people were, but no one is willing to talk about those people.
As part of Bruno’s father’s job, there seems to always be soldiers all around the house.

One day, Bruno decides to build a tire swing in his front yard. One of the soldier’s orders an older man, a servant, to help Bruno with his tire swing. Later that day Bruno falls from the newly built swing and the old man servant come to his aid. The servant, Pavel, care for Bruno’s wounds. When Bruno ask Pavel about what he knows, he finds out that he was a doctor before the war. He was confused on why he no longer worked as a doctor. Maria, the family maid, told Bruno he couldn’t be a doctor because he was a Jew.

Later that day, Bruno began exploring the fenced place that divided their family’s property and the compound next door. He felt like he was walking for hours, then he saw a young boy around his age. The boy, Shmuel, lives on the other side of that fence. Shmuel talks to Bruno about how he use to live right above his father’s watch store, but then the soldiers came and took his family to a single room and they were forced to share with lots of other strange people. Then after awhile of being there they brought them to the camp,

(where they are

now).
Every day after Bruno’s schooling, the boys would be meeting everyday. Bruno often brought Shmuel food, if he didn’t eat it on the long walk there. He brings him food because always seems hungry. One day Bruno was surprised to se Shmuel at his house, he was given the job of cleaning the really fancy glasses that Bruno’s family owned. While Shmuel was working Bruno gave some chicken to him and then Shmuel got caught eating it. Bruno was afraid to tell the truth, so the soldiers believed the Shmuel stole the chicken. To apologize for Shmuel about the chicken, he made a plan to go into the fenced area and dress like Shmuel to help look for Shmuel’s father. On that day they searched the entire compound for Shmuel’s father, but they never found him. After a long day of trying to find Shmuel’s father Bruno decide to go home for dinner. Unfortunately, Bruno and Shmuel found themselves in the middle of a large group of people. Then the soldiers came and started forcing people into a small room. As the people are freaking out and panicking Bruno and Shmuel are holding each other’s hands. For weeks Bruno’s parents have searched nervously for Bruno when they noticed that he disappeared. Finally after searching Bruno’s mother and his sister went back to Berlin. A year after Bruno went missing, Bruno’s father went back to the place where Bruno left his clothes, and he finally realized what really happened to his missing son. He had gotten caught up with the people in the small building, the gas chamber, and died a sad death. When the soldiers came a few months later, Bruno’s father didn’t really care what they would do to him, because of the lost of his young son.