The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I must admit, before I started reading this book, I had an idea about what it was all about, this wasn't a fairy tale, it was a ghetto story. Okay, it wasn't a problem, although I had never really read books of Der Fuhrer's cruelty, I had seen movies about it, Schlinder's List (still had goosebumps), La Vita e Bella (tragically funny) and The Pianist (touching).

First time holding the book, my impression was: it was thin, not as thick as I expected. The cover was stripped, just liked the the title, just liked my memories of the inmate's uniform in movies. What is more tickle was the synopsis in the back cover. ...sooner or later, you will come in that fence, with Bruno....
hhmmpphh......

I was not hoping much from this book, but I got more. Much more than my expectation.

This book was taking a very unusual point of view. The story of misery from the eye of a boy. Not the boy that lived the misery, but another boy, with the same age as him, near him, but had very little touch with him. Playing with him, but always in the different side of destiny's fence. More over, the father of this boy was the one who responsible of the suffering of the hundreds thousand soul in the next yard.

This pure naivete which came from absolute insolent was enabling a bizarre tangled of friendship between the two boys. The absent of angry rage nor arrogance, the lack of narrow patriotism, ideology and nationality awareness, shrunken any suspicious there was and yield a childish faith that exceed the boundaries of war.

If all this ended in the choice that Bruno's did in that fence, did that mean we should judge it as fatal stupidity of unaware child, or shouldn't we consider it was a valuable lesson (bitter as it was, still as valuable as it is) which meant for all adults who think to know all.

The end of the story which told very very short from its climax, made the deepest impression. Even after the book closed, the echo of remorse still clings inside your head.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Cyn's review in Goodreads