The Striped People

Author's Note: In these upcoming paragraphs you will read about my text analysis on "The Boy in the Striped pajamas" written by John Boyne

"The Boy in the Striped pajamas" written by John Boyne is a very touching book. . Back then, people weren't treated the way they should have been. Jewish people were not treated with respect and were kept in concentration camps. It's about two young boys, Bruno, a German, and Shmuel, a Polish Jew, who don't exactly understand the whole situation of the fence that separates them. Throughout the course of the book, Bruno seems to treat Shmuel how everyone should be treated.

A concentration camp is a camp in which people are detained or confined and have kept Jews and treated them harshly. There were many different kinds of camps. These started in about 1933 in Germany and ended around 1939. Some types of camps were Hostage camps and POW camps. Basically, a Hostage camp is where hostages were held. A POW camp is where prisoners of war were held after capture.

After all, life has changed a lot since the 1930s. Also, camps are nowhere to be found and everyone is treated equally. A similar thing from back then to now is racism. Most people are treated equally, but some people just can’t except that everyone’s human. They have the need to make fun of, tease, or bully people about how they look, or act.

When Bruno and Shmuel ignore their rules, they gained a fantastic friendship. Also, they kept it a secret so no one could find Bruno when he went to visit Shmuel. After one day Bruno entered the camp, through a small hole in the fence, to help Shmuel find his missing father.  He felt like a helping friend. As the timing is bad, they go on a march, and never return. A year goes by and Bruno’s disappearance remains a mystery. Until one day when a solider found Bruno’s clothes at the spot Shmuel and him met every day. Suddenly, they find a hole in the fence big enough for Bruno to fit through and his father realizes, his son was killed along with everyone else in the camp. The tone of the father had gone from confident, to depressed from his loss.

As you have heard, concentration camps were awful. People had died everyday for being who they were. After I had seen the movie, I wanted to read the book. The two are very alike and you can understand more. Finally, these camps have stopped and people can be who they are. Not even being able to talk without being beaten, these people were treated horrible.