Bruno and Shmuel seem to lead parallel yet mutually exclusive lives. They share common interests, the same birthday, and a similar perspective on life. Their friendship is not just unlikely; it defies possibility. In a world and a time where people were being told what to think, who to hate and what relationships were acceptable, Bruno and Shmuel demonstrate how resistant and resilient children can be and how important kindness and compassion are.

Gretel
Gretel is Bruno’s twelve year old sister. Bruno calls her a Hopless Case. She thinks Bruno is a baby and that Bruno is very stupid. But because she is older than Bruno is, she understand a lot more than Bruno does. Gretel is in love with Lieutenant Kotler, the eighteen year old soldier who comes a lot at Bruno’s house. Lieutenant Kotler doesn’t see Gretel as his next girlfriend, but he thinks she is an amusing girl.
Gretel is a round character, she changes her behaviour as soon as she turns on thirteen: she dismisses all her dolls and doesn’t bother Bruno anymore.

Father
Father is commander at Out-With / Auschwitz. He has authority and when he speaks, everyone is quiet and no one is allowed to interrupt him. He’s always working in his office, what is ‘Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions’. Father is a good man, he gave Maria’s mother work, and now Maria is working for him either.
Father is a flat character.

Mother
Mother is very considerate. She loves her family very much, but gets evil when her children are in a bad environment. She wants the best for her family. First, she chooses to be at Out-With, because of father’s job. In the long run, she misses everything in Berlin, and sees how unhappy her children are at Out-With, she insists they go back to Berlin.
Mother is a flat character too.

Summary
One day, when Bruno came back home from school Maria, his family maid, was packing all his stuff. Father has received a task from the Fury, he now is the Commandant at Out-With.
Bruno finds it pretty exciting in the beginning, but when they arrived at their new house he started to think different. Almost everything differs from their old house. First they lived in a very big house with five floors with a lot of places to discover. Bruno likes to discover things because he wants to become an explorer when he is grown up. But this house is old and small, it has only three floors and there are no other houses so no other children to play with. He already starts to hate it there, that's what he said to his mother the first day too.

He tries to tell father and mother to move back to Berlin, but it doesn't help. They would live there for the foreseeable future. He didn't know what that meant but that didn't matter for him, as long as it wasn't longer than a month.
Then on a day he looked out of his window and then he saw something which seemed very unpleasant to him. He asked his sister what it was, although he hater her because she is older than him and she always think she is smarter and better. But for this one time she could enter his room. They stared outside for a while, there was a fence with a lot of boys and men behind it. They all wore the same clothes, blue and white striped pyjamas. They just walked and sat there and all looked very sad. Bruno and Gretel couldn't imagine that people could live in such poor living conditions. So they thought it were farmers although they didn't see any animals. Bruno said that the animals might have been put in the buildings. But it was strange that all those hundreds, maybe even thousands of people wore the same clothes and were hit by the soldiers.

After a while Bruno starts to get used to his house and the area around it. They won't move back to Berlin soon so he talks to Maria a lot, just to talk to somebody who would listen to him. They talk about a lot of different things, but mostly about father and Lieutenant Kotler and Gretel who liked Kotler very much. Bruno also hated Kotler because he was almost the same as his sister and he helped her to bully Bruno. He is very mean against kind people, for example Pavel, their cook. Pavel helped Bruno when he fell of his swing. Pavel cleaned the wound and put some bandage around it. Bruno could have bleeded to death.

Then one day Bruno realized he'd love to go exploring. And as there wasn't much to explore in the new house he decided to go to to the fence.
After hours of walking along the fence Bruno started to feel hungry and decided to turn around and go this his home again. But at that moment a little dot appeared at the other side of the fence,that dot became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy. That was the beginning of a special friendship between Bruno and Shmuel, the boy on the other side of the fence.
They were totally different. Bruno had everything he wanted and Shmuel was skinny, pale and dirty. But at the same time they had a lot in common, and the most extraordinary thing was that they were born at the same date, the 15th of April in 1934.

Bruno is very curious about the other side of the fence. Shmuel says that it isn't a good life but Bruno doesn't belief him because: (as Bruno thinks) Shmuel has a lot of friends to play with and Bruno doesn't.

From that day on Bruno tries to go to Shmuel at least once a week. Most of the times he brings some food with him because Shmuel is very skinny, but because of the long trip to the fence Bruno mostly eats some of the food himself already. When they are together they talk about a lot of things. About each other’s past. Shmuel used to live in Poland before and his father had a watch shop. Bruno told about his house in Berlin and his friends there, about the plays he performed with his grandmother and about the busy streets and markets.

Once on a day the Fury came for dinner. Everything in the house must be perfectly clean, everybody worked and prepared for the guests. Then mother and Lieutenant Kotler had to talk for a second. They went into the living room where Bruno was reading his new book about exploring, which he got as a present from his father. Mother sent Bruno to the kitchen. When he opened the door, he had the biggest surprise of his lifetime. At the other side of the dining table was sitting a boy. And it was Shmuel!

Summary
One day, when Bruno came back home from school Maria, his family maid, was packing all his stuff. Father has received a task from the Fury, he now is the Commandant at Out-With.
Bruno finds it pretty exciting in the beginning, but when they arrived at their new house he started to think different. Almost everything differs from their old house. First they lived in a very big house with five floors with a lot of places to discover. Bruno likes to discover things because he wants to become an explorer when he is grown up. But this house is old and small, it has only three floors and there are no other houses so no other children to play with. He already starts to hate it there, that's what he said to his mother the first day too.

He tries to tell father and mother to move back to Berlin, but it doesn't help. They would live there for the foreseeable future. He didn't know what that meant but that didn't matter for him, as long as it wasn't longer than a month.
Then on a day he looked out of his window and then he saw something which seemed very unpleasant to him. He asked his sister what it was, although he hater her because she is older than him and she always think she is smarter and better. But for this one time she could enter his room. They stared outside for a while, there was a fence with a lot of boys and men behind it. They all wore the same clothes, blue and white striped pyjamas. They just walked and sat there and all looked very sad. Bruno and Gretel couldn't imagine that people could live in such poor living conditions. So they thought it were farmers although they didn't see any animals. Bruno said that the animals might have been put in the buildings. But it was strange that all those hundreds, maybe even thousands of people wore the same clothes and were hit by the soldiers.

After a while Bruno starts to get used to his house and the area around it. They won't move back to Berlin soon so he talks to Maria a lot, just to talk to somebody who would listen to him. They talk about a lot of different things, but mostly about father and Lieutenant Kotler and Gretel who liked Kotler very much. Bruno also hated Kotler because he was almost the same as his sister and he helped her to bully Bruno. He is very mean against kind people, for example Pavel, their cook. Pavel helped Bruno when he fell of his swing. Pavel cleaned the wound and put some bandage around it. Bruno could have bleeded to death.

Then one day Bruno realized he'd love to go exploring. And as there wasn't much to explore in the new house he decided to go to to the fence.
After hours of walking along the fence Bruno started to feel hungry and decided to turn around and go this his home again. But at that moment a little dot appeared at the other side of the fence,that dot became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy. That was the beginning of a special friendship between Bruno and Shmuel, the boy on the other side of the fence.
They were totally different. Bruno had everything he wanted and Shmuel was skinny, pale and dirty. But at the same time they had a lot in common, and the most extraordinary thing was that they were born at the same date, the 15th of April in 1934.

Bruno is very curious about the other side of the fence. Shmuel says that it isn't a good life but Bruno doesn't belief him because: (as Bruno thinks) Shmuel has a lot of friends to play with and Bruno doesn't.

From that day on Bruno tries to go to Shmuel at least once a week. Most of the times he brings some food with him because Shmuel is very skinny, but because of the long trip to the fence Bruno mostly eats some of the food himself already. When they are together they talk about a lot of things. About each other’s past. Shmuel used to live in Poland before and his father had a watch shop. Bruno told about his house in Berlin and his friends there, about the plays he performed with his grandmother and about the busy streets and markets.

Once on a day the Fury came for dinner. Everything in the house must be perfectly clean, everybody worked and prepared for the guests. Then mother and Lieutenant Kotler had to talk for a second. They went into the living room where Bruno was reading his new book about exploring, which he got as a present from his father. Mother sent Bruno to the kitchen. When he opened the door, he had the biggest surprise of his lifetime. At the other side of the dining table was sitting a boy. And it was Shmuel!

Shmuel was polishing glasses because he has such small fingers. They were both very happy to see each other, but Kotler had forbidden Shmuel to leave that chair or talk, so he was scared at the same moment. Bruno is very hungry and he takes some chicken out of the refrigerator, he also took something for Shmuel, but he denied it at first, because Kotler would become very angry with him. But finally he takes it and he puts it in his mouth all at once, he chews a few times and he swallows it.
After a while Kotler came inside the kitchen and he saw that Shmuel had been eating something. He thought that Shmuel had stolen it, but Shmuel said that Bruno gave it to him because they were friends. Bruno didn't know what to say for a while but then he said that they weren't friends and that he didn't give it.

The next day Bruno went to the fence where they always met each other, but Shmuel wasn't there. He wasn't there the next day either nor the day after. Bruno thought that Shmuel didn't forgive him of what he said to Kotler. But on the fourth day he saw Shmuel sitting again, cross-legged staring at the dust beneath him. Bruno actually didn't know what to say. But then he said sorry, then Shmuel looked up and he forgave him. He tilt up the fence a little bit and they shook hands. It was the first time that Bruno touched him.

Bruno's parents argue a lot with each other these days. Mother and Gretel miss their friends in Berlin. Bruno doesn't, he forgot what his friends looked like. He has Shmuel now, but he can't tell them about him. Then father decides to send back Mother, Gretel and Bruno. Father would stay in Out-With. He truly don't want to tell Shmuel the bad news, but he had to.
So the day when they met again he told it, Shmuel was very upset because then he would have nobody to talk to anymore. They still had 2 days and Bruno truly wanted to see the other side of the fence, although Shmuel told him multiple times that it wasn't nice at this side. But Bruno insisted and he asked Shmuel to bring some striped pyjamas for him tomorrow.

The next day it rained all day, Bruno didn't want to walk through it but he had to because he didn't want to let his friend down again and on top of that he wanted to explore on the other side of the fence. So Bruno arrived at the fence and Shmuel was standing there, leaning against the fence. Shmuel handed the striped pyjama to Bruno, he changed clothes quickly. Then he rolled under the fence. When he stood up they looked at each other. They almost looked the same, both were bald (father shaved Bruno bald because he had lice), they wore the same clothes and they both were dirty. Only Bruno looked more healthy and he wasn't as pale as his friend. They went exploring, Shmuel's dad disappeared a few days ago and Bruno promised his friend that they would find him. After walking for an hour and a half it started to become dark and Bruno had to go home for dinner. But at that moment a few soldiers blew their whistle and all the Jews were pushed together like animals. Bruno asked what was happening and Shmuel answered that this was a march. He also asked if it would take long and where they were going , but Shmuel didn't know where they went and how long it would take. Not so long he thought. They had to march for a little while and it rained heavily and there was thunder. The soldiers put them in a building. Bruno thought that they were put there because of the rain. But they had to undress and go into a room full of showers. Then the door closed the lights went off and Bruno took Shmuel's hand. He said that Shmuel was the best friend he ever had, perhaps Shmuel opened his mouth too, but then there was a noise and everybody stopped talking. And that was the end of their friendship, hand in hand.

His father found is pile of clothes. Mother and Gretel stayed for a few months longer at Out-With, waiting for the news of Bruno. Then they went to Berlin and father stayed for another year. Then he returned to the place where the pile of clothes was found. He thought of what could have happened. He sat down sadly. A few months after that a few soldiers came to Out-With and father was ordered to come with them. He did that without complaining because he didn't care about what they were going to do with him.
 

About the author

www.johnboyne.nl
“I was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1971, and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where I was awarded the Curtis Brown prize.

My early writing consisted mostly of short stories and I published a number of them. My first story, The Entertainments Jar, was shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award in Ireland. In total, I’ve published about 70 short stories.

My 2006 novel, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, was made into an award-winning Miramax film. The novel itself won 2 Irish Book Awards, the Bisto Book of the Year, and was shortlisted or won a host of international awards. Amongst other accolades, it spent more than 80 weeks at no.1 in Ireland, topped the New York Times Bestseller List, and was the bestselling book in Spain in both 2007 and 2008. Worldwide, it has sold more than 5 million copies.”