The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a British movie based on a novel by John Boyne set in a Nazi Germany concentration camp during World War II; both the novel and movie tell the story of two young boys from different sides of the concentration camp world who meet accidentaly and become friends. The BBC Films and Heyday Films coproduction was both a box office and critical success for director and writer Mark Herman; the depiction of young children being gassed in a Nazi concentration camp has been controversial as the authenticity of the depiction has been questioned by some critics.

The movie opens with a German SS Officer, Ralf being sent to the Polish countryside to take up a new role at a concentration camp for opponents of the Nazi regime; although the camp is never named in the movie it is thought to be based on Auschwitz. Ralf brings his family, made up of his wife Elsa and children Gretel and Bruno to the concentration camp when he is promoted to camp commandant. Because the family's home is located beside the camp Bruno and Gretel are limited to moving around the house and yard of the house. Bruno quickly becomes bored of his limited area to move around in.

Finding an escape route Bruno walks into the countryside until he finds an area of the camp's fence left unguarded and meets another eight year old boy, Shmuel. The boy is an inmate at the camp and wears the striped pyjamas of the prisoner uniform; desperate for a friend, Bruno befriends Shmuel and feeds him through the fence. As the Nazi decision to execute more Jewish prisoners in the camp sees the gas chambers and burning of corpses speeds up Shmuel's Father dissappears in the camp; Bruno borrows a set of clothes from the camp and enters the boundary to help Shmuel find his Father. Ralf and his family now realize Bruno is missing and must attempt to find him before his time in the camp ends with him a victim of the holocaust.