Description

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 historical fiction novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. The plot concerns a German boy named Bruno whose father is the commandant of Auschwitz and Bruno’s friendship with a Jewish detainee named Shmuel.

Bruno moves with his family to a new home near the Auschwitz concentration camp, where his father becomes the commandant. Unaware of the camp’s true nature, Bruno befriends Shmuel, a Jewish boy on the other side of the fence. Their innocent friendship takes a tragic turn when, in a plan to help Shmuel find his father, Bruno enters the camp disguised in prisoner’s clothing and is killed with Shmuel in a gas chamber, a fate his family never fully comprehends.