The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Themes and Symbols

Bruno, the main character of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, is a nine-year-old boy who is the son of a German Commandant (Father) during World War II. Father has been rising in the ranks of the Nazi army, and Bruno has lived a sheltered life in Berlin with his Mother, sister Gretel, maid Maria, and butler Lars. The story, which is a fictional “fable” of the Holocaust, features Bruno as the narrator. Though he attends school, Bruno is mostly ignorant of the political situation at the time. He refers to Hitler, who visits their home with “a beautiful blond woman” (Eva Braun) for dinner, as “the Fury,” the young boy’s incorrect pronunciation for “the Führer.” When the family is moved to Auschwitz (which is only ever referred to as “Out-With” by Bruno, another mispronunciation), Bruno continues to be left in the dark as to why they had to leave Berlin to be near the camp full of people in “striped pyjamas”—the Jews and other prisoners brought to the camp to work or be killed. Though Bruno and his sister Gretel, three years his elder, have a private tutor, Bruno has little to no idea as to what is going on in the camp, or in Germany as a whole. He thinks that Shmuel, the identically aged Jewish boy whom he befriends through the fence to the concentration camp, lives there with his family voluntarily, and Bruno never understands exactly why Shmuel is there, or why he is so thin.

Bruno’s enduring innocence, and his sense that perhaps there are some questions best left unasked, is a prevailing theme throughout the novel. Bruno’s Mother and Father, as well as his sister Gretel, continually answer his questions about what is happening in Berlin and “Out-With” with overgeneralizations and euphemisms. When Bruno asks Gretel who the people on the other side of the fence are, she tells him that they are Jews, and are simply the “opposite” of what she and Bruno are. When he asks, over and over again, why the family must leave Berlin, his Mother tells him that Hitler has “big plans” for his father, but never explains what those plans are. The nature of what Bruno’s father is (a Commandant in the SS, and a director of the concentration camp Auschwitz) and why people are scared of him is never explained in the novel either. Presumably, Bruno is left in the dark about so much of what his family does and why they do it in order to preserve his innocence. However, this innocence is entirely based on ignorance, and it ultimately leads to his death.

Many critics have claimed that the novel is unrealistic and oversimplified in its portrayal of the Holocaust, but it mostly functions as a “fable”—almost an allegory. Thus Bruno’s ignorance of what is happening in Germany during the 1940's comes to represent the German soldiers and citizens who, for whatever reason, complied with, did not interfere with, or otherwise stopped themselves from even thinking about the realities of the Nazi Party’s actions. The innocence enforced on Bruno becomes a damning echo of the ignorance that so many others enforced on themselves.

Bruno’s world in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is filled with places he is not allowed to go, and the reasons for these boundaries are rarely explained to him. He is never allowed into his Father’s office, “with no exceptions,” and he and his sister Gretel are often shooed away from dinner parties and important onversations behind closed doors. Bruno, as a nine-year-old boy, loves nothing more than to explore, and this is how he comes to meet Shmuel through the fence of the concentration camp. Despite the barrier between them, the boys develop a relationship based on conversation, rather than the rough-and-tumble games that Bruno enjoyed with his three best friends back in Berlin.

The boundaries in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - whether they are social boundaries, such as the inability to ask certain questions, or physical ones, such as a closed door or a fence - all lead to dire consequences. Because Bruno does not feel that he can ask his family who the people in the “striped pyjamas” on the other side of the fence are, and his parents and sister do not feel that he deserves an adequate response, Bruno has no idea what the outcome may be when he follows Shmuel in the “march” inside the death camp.

The only time the imposed boundaries within the world of the book are broken down are when Bruno crawls under the fence and blends in with the rest of the prisoners, an act of curiosity and bravery that leads to his death and Shmuel’s. However, one small comfort of the bleak ending is that Shmuel, for all of his terror in the concentration camp, dies in the company of a good friend who has supported him throughout the last year of his life.

As is the case for much of the text, the idea of boundaries acts as an allegory for one aspect of the horrors of the Holocaust. Despite the fact that decades now separate the carnage and terror of camps such as Auschwitz from the world today, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas shows how dangerously easy it can be to get caught up in such acts when people are forcibly divided, and when people are unable to openly discuss the consequences of current affairs. Human rights violations aren’t often that far away—just on the other side of a fence.

NATIONALISM
During World War II, the Nazi Party, which gained control of Germany, operated on the idea that ethnic Germans were superior to the rest of the world, particularly the Jewish population in Europe at the time. Nazi rhetoric and propaganda operated heavily on the idea of the “other”—emphasizing an “us vs. them” division, and demonizing and dehumanizing “them.” In practice this meant attempting to prove, using pseudoscience, the Bible, nationalism, and scare tactics, that Jews were an inferior race that needed to be “exterminated” to solve Germany’s problems.  

Adolf Hitler’s government created concentration camps in which to ruthlessly kill Jews, resulting in the death of over six million people. The Nazis also imprisoned and killed up to five million others—including Romani people, gay people, the mentally disabled, and other minorities—all in the pursuit of creating a nation of idealized “Aryan Germans,” the most perfect of which were believed to be blond-haired, blue-eyed Christians by faith and by blood.

Though Bruno, due to his age and isolation, understands very little about the political situation of Germany when his family moves from Berlin to “Out-With,” his tutor and his Father have still indoctrinated him to an extent to believe in the superiority of Germany and its right to rule. When Shmuel tells Bruno that he is from Poland, Bruno’s immediate response is that Germany is superior to Poland, simply because Germany is better than any other country in the world. Lieutenant Kotler, with his striking blond hair, good looks, and cruelty towards Jews, is meant to represent Hitler’s ideal Aryan man. However, when it is revealed that Kotler’s father fled for Switzerland, which was “neutral” territory during World War II, Father dismisses Kotler from his roles at Auschwitz. This represents the instability inherent in the philosophy of the Nazis—when anyone can
become the “other” and be demonized as unpatriotic or even subhuman, people will eventually turn on each other with paranoia and a mob mentality. The Nazi Party ultimately collapsed and was defeated at the end of World War II.

The nationalism displayed by Bruno’s father and his sister Gretel is not universal to all the Germans in the book. Father’s militant nationalism creates a rift in his family before they leave Berlin—his mother, Bruno’s Grandmother, objects to Father’s new position as head of Auschwitz, and denounces his role in the Nazi Party. She then dies while the family is still in Poland, before she and her son have a chance to be reconciled. Later in the novel, Mother also refuses to stay at “Out-With,” saying the assignment is Father’s and not hers. Even Maria expresses her distaste for what Father orchestrates at the camp, but she still expresses gratitude for her job and the fact that Father took her in after her mother died, as Maria’s mother had worked closely with Bruno’s Grandmother for many years.

Bruno has a difficult time understanding exactly what his father does, and why it is so important to “correct” the history of Germany. He, like some other characters, also has a difficult time reconciling how men such as Father and Lieutenant Kotler act in their personal, day-to-day lives, and the horrors they inflict on the prisoners in the name of Germany and the “Fury.” Bruno cannot yet comprehend that the militant and unequivocal idea of German superiority allows the soldiers and other members of the army to separate their own families and lives from those of the Jews, and thus carry out atrocities while still conducting their own personal lives as normal.

The novel also shows how German nationalism under the Nazi regime began to fail as the war dragged on. This is played out on a personal level through the dysfunction of Bruno’s family (Mother’s affair with Kotler) and the disloyalty of Kotler’s father, who fled to Switzerland. Father himself was first brought to Auschwitz to “correct” the failings of the previous Commandant, showing how unstable policies and beliefs could be within the party itself. When Father realizes that Bruno was killed in a gas chamber in the camp that he commanded, he loses all national pride and even the will to live, and submits himself to punishment (likely a trial, and then execution) when he is arrested by Allied soldiers.

Family and friendship are both important themes for Bruno, as he struggles to determine what role he plays in his household, and how to approach his friendship with Shmuel. Bruno has not been indoctrinated with a hatred for Jews, despite the fact that his father is high-ranking Nazi officer, but his parents do stress that he is not allowed to go near the fence, and his father refers to the people in the “striped pyjamas” as “not really people at all.” Bruno then feels a tension between what his family has told him about staying away from the fence, and the bond he feels with Shmuel, the skinny boy on the other side of the fence. Though Bruno knows very little about why Shmuel is in the camp or why he is not supposed to talk to him, Bruno ultimately allows his friendship to supersede his obedience to his parents and Gretel. 

While Bruno feels respect for his Mother and Father, he understands that all is not well in the family dynamic. Mother is very unhappy when they move away from Berlin, and Father becomes even more secretive and commanding around the household. Bruno is horrified when Pavel, an old man who seems to live in the camp at night but do work in the household during the day, is harshly reprimanded for spilling wine. Pavel was once very kind to Bruno when he fell off a swing, bandaging Bruno’s knee and telling Bruno that he used to be a doctor.

Bruno is thus torn between his positive experiences with the prisoners as very kind but sad people, and his parents’ descriptions of them as subhuman, and somehow the “opposite” of Bruno. This tension ultimately serves as an allegory for the pseudoscience and indoctrination spread by the Nazi Party during World War II, claiming the Germans to be greater than all other nationalities, particularly in respect to the “Jewish problem” in Europe. At the end of the story, with his head shaven, Bruno can find very few differences between himself and his new best friend. Despite Father’s exalted rank within the German army, his son dies the same death as the people he puts into the concentration camp. Thus the book’s “moral” ultimately declares that despite differences of nationality, race, gender, or religion, at a basic level we all desire compassion and companionship, and deserve the same level of dignity and human rights.

The perpetuation of traditional gender roles is present throughout the novel, and contributes to much of the misinformation and miscommunication between the characters. Father is the definitive patriarch of the family, and he is in charge of what the entire family does and where they go. Bruno aspires to be as big and strong as his father, but also feels conflicted in his relationship with his father because of how he appears to treat Mother, the maid, Maria, and Grandmother, who vehemently abhors Father’s role in the Nazi army.
Mother often disagrees with Father’s choices, but as the woman in the relationship, when Father makes a decision, she knows she must follow it. She has taken to passive-aggressively complaining about “some people” in the household when she is upset, a moniker that Bruno has come to realize means “Father.”

When she is unhappy at Auschwitz, Mother takes many “naps” and drinks “medicinal sherries,” showing that she is attempting to sedate herself to escape her misery, as she has no real agency or power of her own. Though it is never explicitly stated,
it is insinuated that Mother engages in an affair with nineteen year- old Lieutenant Kotler, an act of subversion towards Father, and one of the only ways in which Mother is able to exercise her will. Eventually, Father consents to letting the family move back to Berlin, but only after what has been almost a year of convincing, and likely a product of his problematic relationship with Mother: Father is to remain at Auschwitz while Mother takes the children back to Berlin.

Maria, the maid, feels conflicted regarding Father’s character, as she knows of the horrors he orchestrates at Auschwitz, but cannot forget the kindness he has shown towards her and her late mother. As a servant, she knows she cannot express her feelings without being thrown out of the house, and she only reveals them to Bruno when no one else is listening, in an attempt to make him understand the nuances of his Father’s
nature. Grandmother, on the other hand, has no difficulty making it known how atrocious she thinks Father’s new role as Commandant is. She proclaims that she would rather “tear her eyes from her head” than look at Father in his new uniform. Grandfather berates her for speaking her mind, and Father continually counters her arguments against Hitler and the Nazi regime. Grandmother dies before she can reconcile with her
son, and her disapproval seems to have no effect on his life choices. 

The adult women in the novel, bound by their traditional gender roles, each have their own negative opinions regarding Father’s role at Auschwitz, but they are disregarded due to their secondary status to men. This lack of regard leads to a breakdown of communication—Mother does not discuss what Father does with Bruno, or why they are truly moving to Auschwitz, likely because she is too depressed about her inability to have a say in the matter. Grandmother’s opinions are dismissed as well, and this fact is never discussed or explained to Bruno. Most of the women are therefore completely silent in their opposition to Auschwitz and the Nazi agenda as a whole. This sexism does not excuse their complicity, but it does show how the Nazi philosophy of prejudice and hatred extended in many directions at once, so that even “pure Aryan” women were made to be submissive and act out traditional gender roles, having little to no say in real decision making. Within the novel, this leads to a lack of communication that keeps Bruno ignorant, and ultimately causes his death when he has no idea what he is getting himself into when he crawls under the fence.

Though most of the characters in the novel are not explicit members or supporters of the Nazi party, many of them end up complying with the regime’s ideals and goals out of a sense of duty, fear, or apathy. Mother, though she is not thrilled with Father’s new job as a director of the concentration camp Auschwitz, does not actively fight his decision to move the family. This seems to stem from a sense of obligation towards her husband and country, and also due to her status as a woman in a patriarchal society. Indeed, her dislike of Auschwitz relates more to its bleakness and isolation than its role as a concentration camp, showing that she has no real disagreement with the Nazi belief that Jews and other minorities are less than human.

Likewise Bruno, though he is still very young and “innocent,” is also instilled with a belief that Germans, as a people and as a nation, are superior to every other country and culture in the world—even though he doesn’t truly understand what this means. Herr Liszt, the children’s tutor, teaches the children a biased account of history that glorifies Germany and likely the Nazi party as well. Though Lizst is not actively a soldier, this kind of complicity perpetuates the anti-Semitism and German nationalism that were hallmarks of the Nazi party’s ideology. Gretel, then, is a more active example of indoctrination at
work—though she is a typical twelve-year-old girl at the beginning of the novel—her main preoccupation the rearranging of her collection of dolls—by the novel’s end she has become obsessed with following Germany’s expansion across Europe via pushpins in maps her father has given her.

While most of these characters (besides Father and Herr Liszt) don’t take an active role in perpetuating the Nazi’s regime of terror and genocide, complying with demands or turning a blind eye to these kinds of activities was ultimately a major factor in the party’s rise to power in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Women and people in subservient roles (such as Mother and Maria) often felt that they had no choice but to comply with the
Party’s demands, especially after it became the ruling force in Germany. Likewise many soldiers, even those who carried out horrific executions in the concentration camps, claimed that they were “just following orders” in the wake of Nazi defeat in 1945. Because of the party’s fear tactics and ruthless militarism, going against the Nazis could mean danger to one’s life or family, but this also involved turning a blind eye to or complying with crimes against humanity. One of the more frightening lessons of the Holocaust, then, was how far the apathy and inaction of “normal” people can go in allowing for the perpetuation of horrors—as long as these horrors are themselves normalized and encouraged.

 “The Fury” is Bruno’s mispronunciation of “the Führer,” a word that means “leader” in German, but has now become forever linked to the rule of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party, the dictator of Germany during World II, and the orchestrator of the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews, Romani people, homosexuals, and other minorities were killed. Bruno repeats the title “the Fury” whenever he means Hitler, since he only hears Hitler referred to reverently as “the Führer” in his Nazi-supporting household.

Since Bruno’s family must move to Auschwitz soon after the Fury comes to dinner, Bruno comes to associate him with uprooting their way of life. Shmuel, too, associates “the Fury” with uprooting his family’s way of life—but in his case, he and other Jews and minorities were forcibly removed from their homes and placed into death camps. Thus the Fury—a tide of fear and anger, embodied by the genocidal rule of Hitler—comes to symbolize an unshakeable and incomprehensible force that changes things for the worse.

“Out-With” is Bruno’s mispronunciation for Auschwitz, the area in Poland where Father moves the family after Hitler “promotes” him to Commandant of the concentration camp. At first, both Bruno and Gretel mispronounce the Polish name, and call it “Out-With.” Gretel theorizes that it means “out with” the old people in charge of the camp, and in with the new—their Father. While Gretel eventually learns how to pronounce Auschwitz, and chastises Bruno for not attempting to say the word correctly, the phrase continues to symbolize what the Holocaust is meant to do—kick out a group of people (Jews, minorities, and Communists) from the rest of society (Germany, and much of Eastern Europe) by imprisoning or slaughtering them.

Bruno notices immediately that everyone behind the fence at Auschwitz is wearing what he sees as “striped pyjamas.” Shmuel must wear them all the time, and they are what Bruno uses as a disguise when he sneaks into the camp with Shmuel. Bruno, as a nine-year-old boy with little to no understanding of what happens inside the camp, thinks the pyjamas are some kind of comfortable clothing—when in fact they are prison uniforms meant to delineate the Jews in the camp from the German population at large. The striped pyjamas thus represent an artificial branding of people to denote they are different from others. The Nazis engaged in this kind of branding in many ways—Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothing, while the Nazi supporters themselves wore red armbands with black swastikas to show their allegiance to Hitler. Of course, such branding is ultimately superficial when it comes to life, death, and human dignity. Bruno tragically acts out this truth when he, the son of a Nazi Commandant, dies along with the Jews Father and Hitler hope to exterminate, simply because he looks like the rest of the tortured prisoners with his shaved head and dirty “striped pyjamas.” The striped pyjamas thus symbolize Bruno’s childish innocence about the world’s horrors, but also how dangerous divisions and artificial branding can be as a part of racist ideologies.

The fence around the concentration camp is used to keep the prisoners in, and everyone else out and away from seeing the horrors that happen inside. Like the striped pyjamas, however, it is of course an artificial distinction. Bruno and Shmuel, two children on opposite sides of the Holocaust, develop a touching friendship through the wire. Bruno is able to crawl under a hole in the fence, symbolic of how even a physical fence cannot become a barrier between children who don’t know yet how to hate or discriminate. Just like anyone can dress up in the “striped pyjamas” and be mistaken for a Jew, or take them off and be a Nazi supporter, so
the fence is symbolic of artificial barriers that can be set up in any part of the world, between any groups of people. Even those who seem to be securely on the “superior” side of the fence—like Kotler—can easily find themselves ostracised, as Kotler is demoted and transferred simply because his father was not a supporter of the Nazis. Once one fence is built, so are many more, as the “insiders” turn against each other in greed or
paranoia, and set up new divisions about just who is allowed to be “inside.”