The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno is dismayed to see the new house stands alone in the middle of an empty field. He compares it unfavorably to his home in Berlin, which is on a quiet but busy street with a nearby market.

He tries in vain to persuade his mother that the move has been a mistake, but she tells him they will have to “‘make the best of a bad situation’” (27). He goes upstairs to help Maria unpack, grumbling about his father’s job that pays no mind to a boy’s needs. There, he encounters an unknown blond soldier, who “looked very serious and his cap was secured tightly on his head” (31). The soldier nods and leaves, but Bruno feels disturbed and like he is about to cry. He enters his new room, and through the window he sees something that makes him “feel very cold and unsafe” (35). 

Bruno is slightly afraid of his older sister. He hates it when she and her friends make fun of him, especially about his height, as Bruno is small for his age. He also dislikes Gretel’s dolls, which he suspects might be her spies.

He goes to her new room and they both agree the new environment is horrible, but Gretel is sure they will stay at “Out-With”—which she believes to be the name of the house—only a few weeks. Her room looks out to the front of the house, so she has not seen what Bruno has, and he informs her that the other children in this place do not appear to be friendly. Intrigued and dismayed, Gretel follows Bruno to his room and feels oddly afraid to look out his window.

Bruno’s window looks out onto a concentration camp, with hundreds of men and boys all dressed, it seems to Bruno, in grey striped pajamas and with grey striped caps. Directly beneath the house there is a lovely garden and “a very pleasant pavement with a wooden bench on it” (54). Then everything changes: An immense wire fence encloses the area across the house with wooden poles at intervals, topped with bales of barbed wire. On the other side, there is no grass, only packed, dry dirt. Gretel wonders, “Who would build such a nasty-looking place?” (56). She tries to persuade herself and Bruno this is the countryside and a farm, but Bruno points out there are no animals. They see hundreds of people, all men, and guess women must be living somewhere else. They also witness soldiers disband a group of huddled children, making them stand in a line as they cry. Gretel tries to act aloof, but back in her room “a lot of things went through her head” (64).

Bruno decides to ask his father about the men behind the wire. He has not seen his father since before his last day in Berlin. On the journey over, Bruno saw two trains heading the same way, one filled with crowds of people and his own very comfortable train with few people in it.

He waits for his father to finish business with four of his officers. They salute him by sharply raising their arms, “the palm stretched flat, moving from their chests up into the air in front of them” (73).

For Bruno, Father’s office has always been a forbidden zone. He now enters a plush room filled with bookshelves and a huge oak desk, very different from the rest of the house. Surprising himself, he openly expresses his dislike for the new arrangement, stating he wants to go home, to which he receives a stern reply that this is now his home. He asks Father if he has done something to anger the “Fury” since he sent him to this place. His father is surprised but reacts calmly, admiring Bruno’s courage to pose the question.

Leaving, Bruno asks about the people behind the wire. His father tells him, “Those people…well, they’re not people at all, Bruno” (86). As the boy leaves his father salutes him, and the boy returns the salute, carefully pronouncing “Heil Hitler” without understanding what the words mean.