Reaction Paper On The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

Over the past week I have watched and thought about the movie, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”, by Mark Herman. The movie took place during World War Two. A German soldier has a family living in Berlin, Germany. The movie starts off with an eight-year-old boy, Bruno, playing with his friends and when he comes home he is informed that his dad has been promoted and therefore causes them to move to the countryside in Germany. Once arriving to the new home, it is not to long until Bruno looks out his window and sees a, “farm”, concentration camp. He goes onto asking his mother if he can play with the kids at the farm and his mother says no. Out of curiosity Bruno ends up leaving the house and ventures over to the concentration camp and finds a fence dividing him and another boy. The boy on the other side is a prisoner

I found it interesting that the parents could hire a tutor two days of the week for the children. The tutor also seemed interesting, from the way he talked and taught he sounded like he should have taught older children, but this could have been because of time period they were in. I also found it interesting that the young soldier was transferred to the front line because he did not report that his father was not supportive of what the Nazis were doing at the time. I understand that Germany should know about the father but I do not understand why he was punished by going to the frontline. It is confusing though why soldiers did not have to report the women in their family if they were opposed of what the Nazis were doing. This is was shown in the movie because Bruno’s grandmother did not agree with the Nazis and Bruno’s father did not report it. Therefore, the grandmother did not visit the family. This stance that the grandma took was a very brave thing to do at the time. She knew that she would not be very liked but she knew that what the Nazis were doing was not the right thing to