The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas

Sunday night I rented "The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas" and still now I cannot get the movie out of my head. I have always been fasinated with the Holocaust, even from a very early age. I remember BEGGING my mom to go into the Holocaust Museum in DC when it first opened, I was 12. I don't really remember it at age 12 but at age 22 when I went again this year, we spent 3 hours in the Museum and I tried to read EVERYTHING. I am not sure why I'm so facinated by it except that I have always loved trying to understanding why/how people do the things they do.

So I had heard that "The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas" was a good movie so I rented it. OMG so terribly sad. I did not cry during the movie, which is impressive but it just left me feeling empty and so upset. Basically the movie is all about a German Natzi Officers 8 year old son and his perspective. The family is uprooted to live 2 miles away from a Concentration Camp and Bruno (the 8 year old boy) gets bored and begins to explore. He ends up finding the Concentration Camp and befriending a 8 year old Jewish boy as his friend. The movie is written incredibly well to make you feel like it is truly being experienced by an 8 year old boy. The part that stuck out to me the most was the tutorer having Bruno and his 12 year old sister read about how horrible the Jewish people are and how they have destroyed the German nation. The tutor than tells Bruno "if you can find a nice Jew you'd be the best explorer in the world." I don't want to spoil the end but it is a terrible ending but it left me wondering how any human could EVER treat another human being that way.

I learned in my Interior Design History class that people, especially in Europe, use to have Zoos of humans in the 1300's. They use to never see people of other ethnic groups, black, asian, indian, etc. so they would capture them and exhibit them in Zoos. It was supported by the arts for cultural experience!! I can honestly say that people have come a LONG way from having zoos of other humans but just 60 years ago we literally we're keeping people as slaves and killing them because we felt they were "not humans." I just cannot stop thinking about that movie and especially the ending, it broke my heart.