The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Characters

The protagonist and narrator, at the start of the novel
Bruno is a nine-year-old boy living in Berlin during World War
II. His Father, a Nazi officer, then moves the family to
Auschwitz, Poland. As Bruno is young and cannot pronounce
certain words, throughout the novel Hitler is referred to as “the
Fury” (the Führer) and Auschwitz is referred to as “Out-With.”
Bruno is very sheltered and naïve, and though he develops a
close friendship with Shmuel, a Jewish boy in the concentration
camp, Bruno has a difficult time grasping exactly how hard life is
on the other side of the fence. Bruno is very interested in art
and books, and loves exploring. He wants to become a soldier
like his father, and though his parents never explain to him what
is happening in the war, he has been indoctrinated from a
young age to believe that Germany, the “Fatherland,” is superior
to all other nations. Bruno is small for his age, and is very
sensitive to people like Lieutenant Kotler calling him “little
man.” Ultimately Bruno never gets the chance to outgrow his
ignorance and innocence, as his natural empathy and friendship
for Shmuel lead him to cross the fence and be killed in a gas
chamber.

The titular “Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” Shmuel is
Bruno’s Jewish friend who is kept prisoner at Auschwitz. Born
on the same day as Bruno, he and Bruno become good friends,
though Bruno never quite understands the horrors that
Shmuel lives through in the camp. Shmuel is described as being
very thin, and eagerly gobbles up the food that Bruno brings
him. He understands much more about his situation and the
war than Bruno does, but often does not retaliate to Bruno’s
blasé remarks about his comparatively luxurious life, in order to
not start arguments. The two boys ultimately die together in a
gas chamber when Bruno crawls under the fence to help
Shmuel look for his father, who has gone missing (and was likely
killed by the German soldiers).

Kurt Kotler is a nineteen-year-old German
soldier at Auschwitz who frequents Bruno’s home. He is well-dressed, over-cologned, and has striking blond hair—seemingly
the ideal “Aryan” of Nazi ideology. Gretel develops a crush on
him, and Mother strikes up a friendship (and likely an affair)
with the young handsome soldier. He is cruel to the prisoners,
and taunts Bruno by calling him “little man,” something the boy
despises. Kotler is eventually transferred away from Auschwitz
when Father discovers that Kotler’s father, a literature
professor, fled from Germany in 1938 at the start of the war.

Nathalie, Bruno’s grandmother and Father’s
mother, was a singer in her youth, before she married
Grandfather. She is very dramatic, and still loves to sing. Each
Christmas, she devises a play for herself and the children, to be
performed at their holiday party. Grandmother opposes the
Nazi party, and gets into a huge fight with Father when he
accepts the new post at Auschwitz. They do not make up, and
she dies while the family is away at Auschwitz.

Adolf Hitler’s lifelong partner and girlfriend. She is
never referred to by name in the novel, and is only described as
a “beautiful woman” whom Hitler brings to dinner at Bruno’s
house. Eva is kind to the children, even when Hitler is, as Bruno
believes, “the rudest man he has ever met.”

Pavel is the old Jewish man who works in the family’s
house in Auschwitz. He was a doctor before he was sent to the
concentration camp, and he patches up Bruno’s knee when
Bruno cuts it falling off a swing. Pavel becomes thinner and
frailer by the day, and is beaten (likely to death) by Kotler when
he accidentally drops a wine bottle in Kotler’s lap at dinner.

Bruno’s mother is married to Father, a Commandant
in the German army. Mother is very loving towards Gretel and
Bruno, but becomes stern whenever they ask too many
questions or complain about moving to “Out-With.” She refuses
to speak with Bruno about the war, and says it is no topic for
proper conversation. At Out-With, Mother develops a
friendship (and likely an affair) with Lieutenant
Kotler—seemingly an act of rebellion against Father, who
essentially controls her life. Eventually, Mother convinces
Father to let the family move back to Berlin, though she stays
for a time to see if Bruno will return.

Ralf, Bruno’s father, was a soldier in the Great War
(World War I), and is promoted to Commandant in the German
Army by Hitler during World War II. He moves the family to
Auschwitz, where he is in charge of the camp. Father is strict
and intimidating, but expresses tenderness towards his family.
He eventually consents to letting the family move back to
Berlin, though he remains at Auschwitz to continue his duties
for Hitler. A year after Bruno disappears, he figures out what
happened to his son, and is destroyed by the realization. When
the Allied soldiers come to take him away for punishment,
Father submits to their demands, as he no longer has the will to
live.

Gretel is Bruno’s twelve-year-old sister, whom Bruno
refers to as a “Hopeless Case.” She feels that she is much wiser
and more mature than Bruno, and often taunts him. She is at
first mostly interested in her dolls, but after her lessons from
the children’s tutor Herr Liszt, Gretel becomes obsessed with
the changing politics of World War II, and begins to track the
German army’s progress via pushpins in maps on her wall in
“Out-With.” She becomes much more indoctrinated with anti-
Semitic rhetoric than Bruno does, and tells Bruno that they are
the “opposite” of the Jews on the other side of the fence. Gretel
develops a crush on Lieutenant Kotler, and is “inconsolable”
when he is transferred away.