In The Striped Pajamas - The Boy

But if you want to sit in the feeling of tragedy—if you want to remember that every number on a prisoner’s arm belonged to a person with a friend, a family, and a favorite game—read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas .

If you are a student reading this for class: Please, for the love of Bruno, read the historical notes in the back of the book. Don't use this novel as your only source for your history paper. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

I won’t lie to you—I sobbed. The final line about “nothing like that ever happened again” is a punch in the throat. But if you want to sit in the

Boyne has said he wrote a fable, not a textbook. He is not trying to teach you the logistics of the Holocaust; he is trying to teach you the morality of it. I won’t lie to you—I sobbed

Their dialogue is heartbreakingly simple: “We’re not supposed to be friends, are we?” asked Shmuel. “Why not?” asked Bruno. “Because we’re supposed to be enemies.”

If you want to learn the facts of WWII, read Night by Elie Wiesel. Read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

The book is historically inaccurate. The death camps weren't places where a nine-year-old German could sit and chat with a prisoner for a year. Bruno’s naivety is unrealistic (most German children knew the fences were dangerous). And the idea that a Commandant’s son could get into the gas chamber is a fictional plot device that misrepresents how the camps were organized.