The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Summary

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Summary

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

Setting

The novel is set in Berlin in the beginning and then the Auschwitz concentration camp in southern Poland for the rest of the book.

Main Characters

Bruno – is the protagonist and narrator. At the beginning of the novel Bruno is a nine-year-old boy living in Berlin during World War II.

Gretel – she is Bruno’s twelve-year-old sister, whom Bruno refers to as a "Hopeless Case.”

Mother – she is Bruno’s mother who is married to Father, a Commandant in the German army.

Father - 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.

Shmuel – he is the titular "boy in the striped pajamas,” Shmuel is Bruno’s Jewish friend who is kept prisoner at Auschwitz.

Lieutenant Kotler – he is a nineteen-year-old German soldier at Auschwitz who frequents Bruno’s home.

Grandmother - Nathalie, Bruno’s grandmother, and Father’s mother was a singer in her youth before she married Grandfather.

Pavel – he is the old Jewish man who works in the family’s house in Auschwitz.

Eva Braun – she is Adolf Hitler’s lifelong partner and girlfriend.

Plot Summary

Bruno, a nine-year-old boy living in Berlin, Germany in 1943, comes home one day to find his family’s maid, Maria, packing all of his things away inboxes. Bruno’s Mother explains that the family is moving away due to the demands of his father’s new job. "The Fury,” as Bruno calls Adolf Hitler, had come to dinner at Bruno’s home the previous week and has promoted Bruno’s Father. Father is a Commandant in the German army. He is a stern and imposing figure, but still expresses his care for his children. Bruno is unhappy to be leaving his best friends, grandparents, and the hustle and bustle of Berlin, but is presented with no other choice than to go with his family. Before they go, Father gets into a fight with Bruno’s Grandmother, a former singing star, at their Christmas celebration. The grandmother is furious that Father would accept his new job from the Fury, but Father counters that it is a great honor for himself and for the Fatherland.

The family packs up all of their belongings and soon heads out on a train to reach their new home. The new house on a hill is the only house in a very desolate area. Bruno is sad to be away from Berlin and bored to have only his twelve-year-old sister Gretel, whom he does not get along with, for company. Their maid Maria and butler Lars staff the house, but there are also new waiters that Bruno has not met before. One of them, Pavel, is an old, stooped man who cleans up Bruno’s cut knee one day when he falls from a tire swing. Pavel tells Bruno that he has been a doctor in a past life, and Bruno is confused as to why a doctor would be working as a waiter in his house. Bruno comes to learn that Pavel lives on the other side of a fence that runs near their house. On the other side of the fence, as Bruno can see from his bedroom window, are thousands of people living in a sandy, fenced-in camp, all wearing "striped pajamas.” Bruno cannot properly pronounce the name of their new home but calls it "Out-With” (Auschwitz).

As Bruno settles into life at Out-With, he comes to dislike Lieutenant Kotler, a soldier who hangs around their house and whom Gretel has a crush on. Kotler is harsh and calls Bruno "little man.” Mother takes a liking to Lieutenant Kotler, though everyone is horrified when he beats Pavel one day for spilling a glass of wine. Bruno is given lessons in history by a tutor named Herr Liszt, who tells him that Bruno’s father and his family are at Out-With in order to correct the "great wrongs” that have been done to him. Gretel becomes very involved with history and politics and takes to track the events of the news via pushpins in maps on her wall.

Bruno misses the exploring he so enjoyed in Berlin, and one day he walks along the length of the fence, despite the fact that he has been forbidden to do so. He meets a boy who lives on the other side of the fence named Shmuel. Shmuel wears the striped pajamas that Bruno has seen from his window, and he is extraordinarily thin. The two boys strike up a friendship and Bruno begins to visit Shmuel nearly every day. Shmuel tells him how he was taken by soldiers from his home in Cracow, Poland, to the camp, which Bruno comes to realize is also in Poland. Bruno struggles to understand exactly what life is like on Shmuel’s side of the fence but complies when Shmuel asks him to bring him food.

Bruno begins to like life at Out-With a lot more as his friendship with Shmuel develops. One day he is shocked to find Shmuel inside his house. Lieutenant Kotler had brought him there to shine the family’s tiny glasses, a job for someone with small hands. Bruno nonchalantly gives his friend a piece of leftover chicken. Kotler catches them and demands to know if Bruno is friends with Shmuel. Terrified, Bruno denies knowing the boy, and Kotler later beats Shmuel. Kotler is later transferred away from Out-With due to the fact that he reveals to Father that his own father fled from Germany to Switzerland in 1938, at the onset of World War II.

Eventually, Mother convinces Father to move the family back to Berlin. He agrees though he himself will remain at Out-With due to obligations to his job and the Fury. Bruno is saddened to leave Shmuel behind. When he goes to say goodbye, the boys agree that Bruno will dress up in striped pajamas the following day, in order to explore Shmuel’s side of the camp and to help Shmuel search for his father, whom he has not seen for several days.

The next day, Bruno dresses up in pajamas Shmuel has brought him and climbs under the fence. Inside he finds people sick and thin, with soldiers yelling at them. Scared, he wants to leave, but Shmuel asks him to help him find his father. Though they find nothing, the soldiers round up prisoners for a march before Bruno can sneak back under the fence. Scared, the two boys comply and end up in a dark room together. They hold hands as the soldiers shut the doors, and everything goes dark.

Bruno is never heard from again. His mother and sister eventually return to Berlin, and his father becomes hated by the soldiers for his merciless orders. Bruno’s clothes and boots are found where he left them outside the fence when he changed, and one day Bruno’s father pieces together what must have happened to his son. He collapses from the weight of his realization, and months later, different soldiers arrive at the camp. Father complies with all of their demands, as he no longer cares what happens to him after realizing his son’s grim fate.

Themes

1. Boundaries. Bruno’s world in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 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 conversations behind closed doors.
2. Family and friendship. 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 a 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 pajamas” 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.

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