Movie Review: The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

I watched a movie last night that really made me think. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (here is a quick review from Wikipedia) is a 2006 novel about Germans and the Holocaust, from the point of view of a young boy. Bruno is an 9-year-old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin. He lives in a huge house with his parents, his 12-year-old sister Gretel and servants. His father is a high-ranking official who, after a visit from the "Fuehrer" (Hitler), is promoted to 'Commandant', and to Bruno's sadness the family has to move away to a place called Out-With (Which is the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz). When Bruno gets there he is immediately homesick after leaving behind his home, grandparents, and his three best friends. He is unhappy with his new home. It only has three floors and there are always soldiers coming in and out of the house. Bruno is lonely and has no one to talk to or play with. However, one day while Bruno is looking out of his window he notices a bunch of people all wearing the same striped pajamas. As he is a curious child, Bruno asks his father who these people are, but gets a rather unusual answer. His father tells him that these people are not people at all. They are rather just manual labor..
Bruno finds out he is not allowed to explore the house or its surroundings. Due to the combination of curiosity and boredom, he is forced to explore. He thinks he spots a dot in the distance on the other side of the fence and as he gets closer, he sees it's a boy. Excited that there might be a boy his age Bruno introduces himself. The Jewish boy's name is Shmuel. He was taken from his family and forced to work in Auschwitz. Almost every day, they meet at the same spot and talk.
The story ends with Bruno about to go back to Berlin with his mother and sister on the orders of his father. As a final adventure, he agrees to dress in a set of striped pyjamas and goes in under the fence to help Shmuel find his father, who went missing in the camp. The boys are unable to find him, and just as it starts to rain and get dark, Bruno decides he would like to go home, but they are rounded up in a crowd of people by the Nazi guards who start them on a march. Neither boy knows where this march will lead. However, they are soon crowded into a gas chamber, which Bruno assumes is a place to keep them dry from the rain until it stops. The author leaves the story with Bruno pondering, yet unafraid, in the dark holding hands with Shmuel. "...Despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go".
This movie left me crying very hard afterwards, it made me feel very sad. Just thinking about how people are so evil. We really are, It's just terrible. I ended up praying to God, asking him to show me the way. To forgive me for all i've done. I thanked him about how great he has been to me! He has kept me from alot of horrors i could have been through. Just to think about the children who suffered then, and still do. There was one line that really struck me in that movie, when there was a strong reek outside, a young soldier walked up to the little boys mom and said, "They smell even worse burning, don't they?" Just how terrible that was, how he could just say that and be serious. We are all people, God created us all equally and we all are creative in our own ways. I love to think about how awesome God is to me, and how he has kept me safe all my love. God is good all the time, All the time, God is good!(: So I give the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 10 stars out of 10. Although, some material is not suitable for children.

Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. ~Robert H. Schuller


Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway. ~Mary C. Crowley


God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. ~St. Augustine


Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God. ~James Weldon Johnson


God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them. ~Author Unknown