By A.J. Griffiths-Jones – Last month the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. It was a dark time in history that will forever be a blot on Europe’s campaign for human rights, yet one that should be remembered so that such a terrible place should never again exist.
There are many, many books, both fiction and non-fiction which address this particular time, and the horrors associated with it. Novels that have been made into blockbuster films and first-hand accounts carefully compiled to forever preserve the memories of those who did not survive. Schindler’s List and The Tattooist of Auschwitz, are two such popular reads.
However, one that is written from a very different perspective is The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by British writer John Boyne, a tale from the other side of the fence, quite literally. It’s refreshingly blunt, historically accurate and captures the essence of human nature.
The story begins with Bruno, the nine-year-old son of a high-ranking officer in Hitler’s Third Reich, who arrives home from school one day to find the family maid packing his belongings into crates.
It is at that moment that the child’s world is turned upside down, his friends and grandparents left behind in Berlin, furniture in the grand family home covered with dust sheets, as they move to a house within sight of a place that Bruno understands to be called Out-With.
At first the changes are new and exciting for Bruno and his sister Gretel, there is a garden to explore, visitors coming and going to his father’s ‘Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions’ office. But so too are there raised voices and clandestine meetings, as his parents make adjustments amidst a constant stream of smartly uniformed officers arriving at all hours.
Bruno’s relationship with Gretel, whom he refers to as a Hopeless Case, is one of typical sibling rivalry, they have little in common and a three-year age gap creates plenty of cause for bickering and annoyance. One factor that does bring the children together, however, is their curiosity for what can be seen through an upper-floor window – men of different ages, behind a barbed-wire fence, all wearing the same drab striped pyjamas.
It is at this point that young Bruno begins to have passing encounters with the camp inmates of Auschwitz, without realising their true plight or why it is they cannot leave.
At first, he meets Pavel, an old man who would arrive every afternoon to peel vegetables in the kitchen and later don a white jacket to serve at the dinner table. After a minor accident falling from a rope swing, it is Pavel who attends to Bruno’s wounds and reveals his former profession as a doctor, raising many questions in the boy’s mind and causing him to undertake an exploration of the perimeter fence that encloses the hundreds of ‘farmers’ just like Pavel.
It is here that Bruno encounters Shmuel, a skinny boy living a parallel existence, but with whom he shares the same birthday and a host of coincidences. Visits to the fence become more regular, until Bruno is sharing bread and chocolate with his new friend, watching in awe as Shmuel ravenously devours every morsel.
Days turn to weeks and the two boys become friends, slowly sharing stories about each other’s lives, not fully comprehending that these coincidences are actually worlds apart.
Both boys’ fathers wore armbands, one to signify him as Jewish, the other as a commandant in the Nazi party, both children arrived home one day to be told they were moving to a strange new place, although only one of them lives in comfort and safety. It is only Bruno’s naivety that prevents him from grasping the enormity of his new companion’s words, the innocence of a child with his whole life ahead of him.
This is a compact yet powerful book, beautifully written to lay the foundation stones of a situation told through the innocent eyes of children.
The film adaptation does credit to Boyne’s amazing creation and is highly recommended. To reveal the outcome would spoil the carefully penned chapters that build up to a shocking ending, but what a final twist! T
he Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is a novel that can easily be read in one day, yet the way in which it concludes is one which the reader, and the world, will never forget.