Depiction of The Holocaust in "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" Essay Example

Millions of people died unjustified during WWII. Approximately 13 million people died under Adolf Hitlers command. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a depiction of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during WWII. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis murdered around 6 million Jews. That's about two thirds of Europe's Jewish population. John Boyne’s fable, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a family who moved to a house near a concentration camp. The main character is a boy called Bruno who later on the story starts to understand who the people in the concentration camp are after he starts to talk to a Jewish boy in the concentration camp. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not an accurate depiction of the Holocaust because the novel promotes historical inaccuracies and the perspective its written in.

One reason, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not an accurate depiction of the Holocaust is because it promotes historical inaccuracies. After a couple of days of not seeing each other Shmuel, “...lifted the bottom of the fence up like he did whenever Bruno brought him food, but this time he reached his hand out and held it there, waiting until Bruno did the same, and then the two boys shook hands and smiled at each other” (Boyne 175). The boys did not have to put in much effort to meet and did not seem to struggle much. They were able to make contact relatively easy. Doing this, Boyne creates a sense that the concentration camp wasn't that strict. However, Elie Wiesel someone who actually experienced the Holocaust said, “...while the SS took refuge in the shelters. As it was relatively easy to escape during an alert--the guards left the watchtowers and the electric current in the barbed wire was cut-- the standing order to the SS was to shoot anyone found outside his block” (Wiesel 59). There was no way that Shmuel could see Bruno mostly every day without getting shot. Furthermore, he would not have had that freedom to wander around the concentration camp. Moreover, Shmuel would not have been able to lift the barbed wire without getting electrocuted. Not only does Boyne describe the conditions in the concentration camp poorly, he writes the story in the perspective of a child. 

Another reason why The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not an accurate depiction of the Holocaust is because the perspective its written in. Bruno was looking out his window and said that, “The pajama people all jumped to attention whenever the soldiers approached and sometimes they fell to the ground and sometimes they didn't ever get up and had to be carried away” (Boyne 101). Boyne wrote this book from the perspective of a nine-year-old boy who doesn't understand much about what's happening around him. Bruno was not able to understand that the people that would fall and never got back up were dead. He also does not know why the Jewish people are wearing pajamas all day. On the other hand, Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, was having a conversation with someone and said, “Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks” (Wiesel 6). Different to how Bruno described the pajama people and how they would fall and never get back up, the person Wiesel was talking was able to fully understand the blood and gore during the Holocaust. The person Wiesel was talking to was also able to describe the “pajama people'' as prisoners. This proves that the perspectives the two books are written in are way different. Although its clear The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an inaccurate depiction of the Holocaust, others may say differently.

 Others may think The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an accurate depiction of the holocaust because it teaches friendship and also censors violence for little kids. However, it is important for 8th graders to understand the horrors the Jewish people went through during the Holocaust. So they can get a deeper understanding of history. 

The historical inaccuracies and the perspective the book is written in are some reasons why The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not and accurate depiction of the Holocaust. The way in which the boys met in the book was not historically accurate as Elie Wiesel described. Also, using the perspective of a young boy, the brutality of the Holocaust cannot be captured because it is seen in an innocent point of view. Although, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an interesting book to read, 8th graders must learn about the horrors of the Holocaust so nothing like it will ever come to exist again.