Boy in the Striped Pajamas

In class we have just finished watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. This film causes us to think about a few very important issues:

• The essence of true friendship
  
• The courage to engage in humane actions
  
• The uses and abuses of obedience and conformity
  
• The development and consequences of prejudice and discrimination 
  

Please consider these questions and answer them in complete sentences.

Innocence

1. What do “innocent” and mean when used to describe children?
2. Does Bruno and Gretel’s tutor take advantage of the children’s innocence in what he teaches them? How? What were these ideas? 
3. Although Bruno and his family have moved to a desolate place, Bruno continues to display his strong sense of adventure and creativity. What are some examples of this in the movie? Can you give an example from your own life when your sense of adventure and imagination allowed you to escape from a sad or painful situation? 
4. Why was it so hard for him to believe that his father could be involved in hurtful acts?

Friendship

1. Why do you think Bruno and Shmuel become friends and stay friends?    
2. The barbed wire fence is a physical separation between Bruno and Shmuel. What other types of separation does the fence represent in this story? 

Obedience & Conformity

1. How is obedience constructive and how can it be destructive? Give examples from the story of each. 
2. When are some examples in history when obedience or disobedience have been constructive or destructive? 

Prejudice & Discrimination

1. Have you ever been discriminated against? When have you witnessed discrimination against other people or discriminated against someone else?
2. When Bruno first finds out that Shmuel is Jewish, he says: “You’re a Jew. You can’t be. I think I should go now.” Why does Bruno react that way at first? 

Final Questions

1. When you hear someone make a biased comment about a group of people, what do you usu- ally do? How hard is it to stand up to prejudice and discrimination? Why? 
2. What do you think causes people to treat others in such horrific ways as was done during the Holocaust? Are there people being treated like this anywhere in the world today? What is or can be done to stop it? 

These questions are based on a discussion guide produced by the FILM Project with Harriet S. Mosatche, Ph.D.

youthfilmproject.org          boyinthestripedpajamas.com