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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

August 25, 2023

For the film, see The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (film).

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 Holocaust novel by Irish novelist John Boyne.[1] 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.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
UK first edition book cover
AuthorJohn Boyne
CountryIreland
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical
PublisherDavid Fickling Books
Publication date
6 January 2006
Media typePrint (hard cover & paper back)
Pages216
ISBN0-385-60940-X
OCLC62132588
823.914 22
LC ClassCS 2006/45764
Followed byAll the Broken Places 

Boyne wrote the entire first draft in two and a half days, without sleeping much; but also said that he was quite a serious student of Holocaust-related literature for years before the idea for the novel even came to him.[1][2]

The book has received mixed reviews; positive reviews have praised the story as a morality tale. It has been criticized by scholars and historians of the Holocaust as well as memorial organizations.[3][4] Negative reviews have noted the book's historical inconsistencies, and the potential damage it could cause to people's Holocaust education.[5][6][7]

In both 2007 and 2008, it was the best-selling book of the year in Spain,[8] and it reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.[9] The book was adapted into a homonymous film in 2008, a ballet in 2017 and an opera entitled A Child in Striped Pyjamas in 2023.[10][11][12][13][14][15] It was followed by a sequel, All the Broken Places, which was published in 2022.[16]

Background Edit

John Boyne has described the conception of his novel as an idea popping into his head instantly of "two boys, the mirror of each other, sitting either side of a wire fence". While the conception of the book came about fast, his inspiration for writing has a more lengthy foundation. Boyne has stated that his style and writing process has been influenced by Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia, who suggested he write every day without rest days.[17]

Unlike the novels written by him, Boyne has described how he wrote the first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in roughly two days and a half, with the idea for the novel coming to him on Tuesday, April 27, then wrote non-stop until Friday at noon. Afterwards, he ended up writing ten different drafts before sending his book to the editor.[17] As for the subject material and research that Boyne undertook to write the book, Professor Gerd Bayer from the University of Erlangen has stated that Boyne's reader should not rely on "the actual truth-value of his text".[18]

Plot Edit

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin. He lives with his parents, his twelve-year-old sister Gretel whom he has nicknamed "A Hopeless Case", and maids, one of whom is named Maria and another is a Jewish chef named Pavel. After a visit by Adolf Hitler, whose title the Führer Bruno commonly mispronounces as "Fury", Bruno's father Ralf is promoted to Commandant of the death camp Auschwitz, which Bruno mispronounces as "Out-With".

Bruno is initially upset about having to move to Auschwitz and is almost in tears[5] at the prospect of leaving his "best friends for life", Daniel, Karl, and Martin. From the house at Auschwitz, Bruno sees the camp in which the prisoners' uniforms appear to him to be "striped pyjamas". One day Bruno decides to explore the wire fence surrounding the camp. He meets a Jewish boy, Shmuel, who he learns shares his birthday (April 15) and age. Shmuel says that his father, grandfather, and brother are with him on his side of the fence, but he is separated from his mother. Bruno and Shmuel talk and become very good friends although Bruno still does not understand very much about Shmuel or his life. Nearly every day, unless it is raining, Bruno goes to see Shmuel and sneaks him food. Over time, Bruno notices that Shmuel is rapidly losing weight.

Bruno concocts a plan with Shmuel to sneak into the camp to look for Shmuel's father, who has gone missing. Shmuel brings a set of prison clothes and Bruno leaves his own clothes outside the fence. As they search the camp they are captured, added to a group of prisoners on a "march", and led into a gas chamber, which Bruno assumes is simply a rain shelter. In the gas chamber, Bruno apologises to Shmuel for not finding his father and tells Shmuel that he is his best friend for life. It is not made clear if Shmuel answers before the doors close and the lights go out, although Bruno determines to never let go of Shmuel's hand.

Bruno is never seen again, his clothes being discovered by a soldier days later. His mother, Elsa, spends months searching for him, even returning to their old home, before at last moving back to Berlin with Gretel, who isolates herself in her room. Ralf spends a year more at Auschwitz, becoming ruthless and cold to his subordinates. A year later, he returns to the place where Bruno's clothes were found, finding the gap in the fence. He deduces how his son disappeared and collapses to the ground in grief. Months later, Allied troops liberate the camp and Ralf, wracked with guilt and self-loathing, allows himself to be taken prisoner without resistance.

The book ends with the phrase "Of course, all of this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age".

Genre and style Edit

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas fits into the genre of Holocaust fiction.[19] Boyne uses general knowledge about the Holocaust to create a self-described "fable", that relies more on a story of moral truth than historical accuracy.[19] This type of literature, as shown in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, tends to be told to children, from a child's perspective.[20] By having one child share the "bitter herbs" of history with another, the novel instills moral obligation in children.[20]

Kenneth Kidd, professor of English at the University of Florida, argues that John Boyne's use of fable allows him to explore the darker elements of the Holocaust with more of a cautionary tale resulting.[21]

Analysis Edit

Sophie Melissa Smith, a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton, argues that writing a factual story as a fable is damaging as it may produce misconceptions about the Holocaust.[21] Examples include the ability of Shmuel to escape work and Bruno's ability to approach an electrified fence.[22]

Smith claims that Boyne lowers the culpability of Nazis like Bruno's father by not just humanizing them but also creating a sense of obligation in characters like Bruno's father, as Bruno's father was a Commandant at a large concentration camp.[21] Additionally, the depiction of the story told through Bruno creates a greater ignorance of the Nazi regime by using words such as "the Fury" in place of the Fuhrer and "Out-with" in place of Auschwitz.[19] Generally, critics see the trivialization of the Nazi regime in this portrayal as damaging to Holocaust education.[7][23]

Educational implications Edit

A 2009 study by the London Jewish Cultural Centre conducted a survey in which 75% of respondents thought Boyne's novel was based on a true story.[23] Many students also thought "the tragic death of Bruno brought about the end of concentration camps."[21]

Michael Gray, Director of Studies at Harrow School and author of Contemporary Debates in Holocaust Education and Teaching the Holocaust: Practical Approaches for Ages 11-18, described the book in 2014 as "a curse for Holocaust education."[24] In an opinion column for the Jewish Chronicle, Noah Max criticised Gray: "Gray’s 2015 study... [found] that 'respondents almost universally expressed their eagerness for studying the topic and frequently remarked that this [the Shoah] was one of the most interesting periods of history' (my italics). His sample of 298 Year 9 students from London and Oxford is perilously narrow given the book’s widespread popularity and none of his other findings are anywhere near that substantial. However, even in a sample so small, any 'universal' finding is worthy of close attention."[25]

Criticising the book's accuracy, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum commented in 2020 that the novel "should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches about the Holocaust."[26] The Melbourne Holocaust Museum, while finding the book a powerful introduction to the subject, cautions teachers regarding its many inaccuracies.[27]

Following on from their research in 2016, that suggested that pupils reach mistaken and/or misleading conclusions about the Holocaust from the book, The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education's 2020 research found that 35% of teachers in England conducting lessons on the Holocaust use it, or the film.[28]

In response to Noah Max's operatic adaptation of the book, Professor Nathan Abrams wrote that "it is a very tricky task to translate the magnitude of the Holocaust to a younger audience. Any device, however flawed, should be applauded for attempting to do so even if it does not fully succeed. It is the task of the reader to go and learn more to put the novel in context."[29]

Reception Edit

Kathryn Hughes, writing in The Guardian, calls the novel "a small wonder of a book." She takes issue with the laxness of Auschwitz and describes the novel as "something that borders on fable," arguing that "Bruno's innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses."[5]

Nicholas Tucker, writing in The Independent, calls the novel "a fine addition to a once taboo area of history, at least where children's literature is concerned." He asserts that it is a good depiction of a tragic event that strays away from graphic details, with the exception of the "killer punch" at the end of the novel.[30]

Ed Wright, writing in The Age of Melbourne, calls the novel "a touching tale of an odd friendship between two boys in horrendous circumstances and a reminder of man's capacity for inhumanity." He felt that the depiction of Bruno and Shmuel's friendship was a classic childhood friendship with a naïvety of their surroundings. He concludes by observing that "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is subtitled A Fable", and sets out to create a moral story of human nature in a fable format.[31]

A. O. Scott, writing in The New York Times, questioned the author and publisher's choice to intentionally keep the Holocaust setting of the book vague in both the dust jacket summary and the early portion of the novel.[32] Scott described how the experiences of the characters were supposed to be represented as separate from the setting of the Holocaust, and this creates a lack of the informative nature seen in other novels of Holocaust literature such as Night by Elie Wiesel.[32] Scott claims that "there is something awkward about the way Boyne manages to disguise, and then to disclose, the historical context."[32] Scott concludes that "to mold the Holocaust into an allegory, as Boyne does here with perfectly benign intent, is to step away from its reality."[32]

Rabbi Benjamin Blech offered a historical criticism, contending that the premise of the book and subsequent film – that there could be a child of Shmuel's age in Auschwitz – was impossible, writing of the book: "Note to the reader: there were no 9-year-old Jewish boys in Auschwitz – the Nazis immediately gassed those not old enough to work."[33] Rabbi Blech affirmed the opinion of a Holocaust survivor friend that the book is "not just a lie and not just a fairytale, but a profanation." Students who read it, he warns, may believe the camps "weren't that bad" if a boy could conduct a clandestine friendship with a Jewish captive of the same age, unaware of "the constant presence of death."[33]

Holocaust scholar Henry Gonshak rebuts Blech's historical contention in his book, Hollywood and the Holocaust. He writes that "the rabbi found implausible Shmuel's very existence in the camp," but states that "Blech is factually incorrect."[34] While there were no female children, records have shown that in 1944 "there were 619 male children at the camp, ranging in age from one month to fourteen years old."[34]

Gonshak acknowledges that this presence of children does not take away from the thousands who were murdered in the gas chambers.[34]

In other media Edit

In 2008, two years after being published, the novel was made into a movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, directed by Mark Herman.[10]

In 2017, the novel was adapted into a ballet by the Northern Ballet. The score is produced by Gary Yershon.[11] Reviews of the ballet are generally negative with Zo and Euml Anderson of The Independent stating the casting of children's parts as adults works against "the naivety of a child's viewpoint," which the novel captures.[35] The Yorkshire Post's review described the score as "a relentless assault on the ears," but apart from the music, it stated that it has redeemable quality in the cast, despite being depressing.[11]

In 2023 the novel was adapted into an opera entitled A Child In Striped Pyjamas by Noah Max.[12] He says of Boyne's book: "It's very hard to convince children to read a book about something as dark and serious as the Holocaust and what I find amazing is that while not all adults get the profound symbolism of the story, kids get it. They pick up on the fact that the children have the same birthday and are the same child."[36] On the appropriateness of depicting the Holocaust through opera, Max says: "the only way to convey its magnitude – and in such a way that people understood it was symbolic and not real – was through opera."[13] The piece was positively received by critics. Barry Millington gave A Child In Striped Pyjamas four stars in the London Evening Standard, describing the work as "intense, harrowing drama... [which] invites universal grief".[14] In The Telegraph Sir Nicholas Kenyon wrote that the piece was "emotionally ambitious... vocally eloquent... there can be no doubt of the integrity with which the tight-knit company deliver it."[15]

References Edit

  1. ^ a b . 2006. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  2. ^ "John Boyne talks About The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". www.whatsonlive.co.uk. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  3. ^ Gray, Michael (1 December 2014). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?". Holocaust Studies. 20 (3): 109–136. doi:10.1080/17504902.2014.11435377. ISSN 1750-4902. S2CID 143231358.
  4. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (27 January 2022). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 'may fuel dangerous Holocaust fallacies'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Hughes, Kathryn (21 January 2006). "Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by David Fickling". The Guardian.
  6. ^ Agnew, Trevor (9 May 2008). "John Boyne Interview". Agnew Reading.
  7. ^ a b Hannah May Randall (31 May 2019). "The Problem with 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'". Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  8. ^ Stuart J. Foster; Andy Pearce; Alice Pettigrew (2020). Holocaust Education: Contemporary Challenges and controversies. London: UCL Press. ISBN 978-1-78735-798-3. OCLC 1159166150.
  9. ^ "Biography". John Boyne. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  10. ^ a b The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) at IMDb
  11. ^ a b c "Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". Yorkshire Post. 4 June 2017.
  12. ^ a b North, Nic (21 April 2022). "Hollywood giant relents over $1m demand to stage Holocaust opera". The Jewish Chronicle. p. 3.
  13. ^ a b Coghlan, Alexandra. "Noah Max: my fight to make A Child in Striped Pyjamas". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  14. ^ a b Millington, Barry (13 January 2023). "A Child in Striped Pyjamas at the Cockpit review - intense, harrowing drama". Evening Standard. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  15. ^ a b Kenyon, Nicholas (12 January 2023). "A Child In Striped Pyjamas: Holocaust drama that's emotionally ambitious and diligently delivered". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  16. ^ Devlin, Martina (22 September 2022). "All The Broken Places by John Boyne: A sister's lifetime in the shadow of the death camps". Irish Independent. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  17. ^ a b Boyne, John (1 April 2017). "My working day 'I began on Wednesday morning and continued for 60 hours'". The Guardian.
  18. ^ Bayer, Gerd (2011). "World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma". DQR Studies in Literature. 48: 155–174, 164. ProQuest 896482224.
  19. ^ a b c "A debate over the 'limits of representation'". Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  20. ^ a b Bayer, Gerd (2011). "World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma". DQR Studies in Literature. 48: 155–174, 299. ProQuest 896482224.
  21. ^ a b c d Seidel, Marc-David L.; Greve, Henrich R. (24 March 2017). "Emergence: How Novelty, Growth, and Formation Shape Organizations and Their Ecosystems". Emergence. Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Vol. 50. pp. 1–27. doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20170000050020. ISBN 978-1-78635-915-5.
  22. ^ Topography of Terror: A Documentation, trans. by Pamela Selwyn, (Eberl Print: Immenstadt, 2008)[page needed]
  23. ^ a b Gray, Michael (December 2014). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?". Holocaust Studies. 20 (3): 109–136. doi:10.1080/17504902.2014.11435377. S2CID 143231358.
  24. ^ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?, Michael Gray
  25. ^ Max, Noah (4 April 2023). "'Why I stand by my opera version of Striped Pyjamas'". The Jewish Chronicle. p. 18.
  26. ^ McGreevy, Ronan (5 January 2020). "Avoid John Boyne's Holocaust novel, Auschwitz Museum advises". The Irish Times. Dublin, Ireland.
  27. ^ How to study ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ in the classroom
  28. ^ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in English secondary schools
  29. ^ "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is now an opera – the case for adapting the book that the Auschwitz Museum said 'should be avoided'". Bangor University. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  30. ^ Tucker, Nicholas (13 January 2006). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne". The Independent.
  31. ^ Wright, Ed (3 January 2006). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". The Age.
  32. ^ a b c d Scott, A. O. (12 November 2006). "Something Is Happening". The New York Times.
  33. ^ a b Blech, Benjamin (23 October 2008). "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". Aish.
  34. ^ a b c Gonshak, Henry (16 October 2015). Hollywood and the Holocaust. ISBN 9781442252240.
  35. ^ Anderson, Zoë (12 June 2017). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas review: Clumsy staging of novel". The Independent.
  36. ^ Galton, Bridget (4 May 2022). "Composer to stage opera of Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". Ham & High.

Further reading Edit

  • Gray, Michael (3 June 2015). "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?". Holocaust Studies. 20 (3): 109–136. doi:10.1080/17504902.2014.11435377. S2CID 143231358.
  • Hannah May Randall (31 May 2019). "The Problem with 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'". Retrieved 22 November 2021.

August 25, 2023
striped, pyjamas, film, film, 2006, holocaust, novel, irish, novelist, john, boyne, plot, concerns, german, named, bruno, whose, father, commandant, auschwitz, bruno, friendship, with, jewish, detainee, named, shmuel, first, edition, book, coverauthorjohn, boy. For the film see The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 Holocaust novel by Irish novelist John Boyne 1 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 The Boy in the Striped PyjamasUK first edition book coverAuthorJohn BoyneCountryIrelandLanguageEnglishGenreHistoricalPublisherDavid Fickling BooksPublication date6 January 2006Media typePrint hard cover amp paper back Pages216ISBN0 385 60940 XOCLC62132588Dewey Decimal823 914 22LC ClassCS 2006 45764Followed byAll the Broken Places Boyne wrote the entire first draft in two and a half days without sleeping much but also said that he was quite a serious student of Holocaust related literature for years before the idea for the novel even came to him 1 2 The book has received mixed reviews positive reviews have praised the story as a morality tale It has been criticized by scholars and historians of the Holocaust as well as memorial organizations 3 4 Negative reviews have noted the book s historical inconsistencies and the potential damage it could cause to people s Holocaust education 5 6 7 In both 2007 and 2008 it was the best selling book of the year in Spain 8 and it reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list 9 The book was adapted into a homonymous film in 2008 a ballet in 2017 and an opera entitled A Child in Striped Pyjamas in 2023 10 11 12 13 14 15 It was followed by a sequel All the Broken Places which was published in 2022 16 Contents 1 Background 2 Plot 3 Genre and style 4 Analysis 4 1 Educational implications 5 Reception 6 In other media 7 References 8 Further readingBackground EditJohn Boyne has described the conception of his novel as an idea popping into his head instantly of two boys the mirror of each other sitting either side of a wire fence While the conception of the book came about fast his inspiration for writing has a more lengthy foundation Boyne has stated that his style and writing process has been influenced by Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia who suggested he write every day without rest days 17 Unlike the novels written by him Boyne has described how he wrote the first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in roughly two days and a half with the idea for the novel coming to him on Tuesday April 27 then wrote non stop until Friday at noon Afterwards he ended up writing ten different drafts before sending his book to the editor 17 As for the subject material and research that Boyne undertook to write the book Professor Gerd Bayer from the University of Erlangen has stated that Boyne s reader should not rely on the actual truth value of his text 18 Plot EditBruno is a nine year old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin He lives with his parents his twelve year old sister Gretel whom he has nicknamed A Hopeless Case and maids one of whom is named Maria and another is a Jewish chef named Pavel After a visit by Adolf Hitler whose title the Fuhrer Bruno commonly mispronounces as Fury Bruno s father Ralf is promoted to Commandant of the death camp Auschwitz which Bruno mispronounces as Out With Bruno is initially upset about having to move to Auschwitz and is almost in tears 5 at the prospect of leaving his best friends for life Daniel Karl and Martin From the house at Auschwitz Bruno sees the camp in which the prisoners uniforms appear to him to be striped pyjamas One day Bruno decides to explore the wire fence surrounding the camp He meets a Jewish boy Shmuel who he learns shares his birthday April 15 and age Shmuel says that his father grandfather and brother are with him on his side of the fence but he is separated from his mother Bruno and Shmuel talk and become very good friends although Bruno still does not understand very much about Shmuel or his life Nearly every day unless it is raining Bruno goes to see Shmuel and sneaks him food Over time Bruno notices that Shmuel is rapidly losing weight Bruno concocts a plan with Shmuel to sneak into the camp to look for Shmuel s father who has gone missing Shmuel brings a set of prison clothes and Bruno leaves his own clothes outside the fence As they search the camp they are captured added to a group of prisoners on a march and led into a gas chamber which Bruno assumes is simply a rain shelter In the gas chamber Bruno apologises to Shmuel for not finding his father and tells Shmuel that he is his best friend for life It is not made clear if Shmuel answers before the doors close and the lights go out although Bruno determines to never let go of Shmuel s hand Bruno is never seen again his clothes being discovered by a soldier days later His mother Elsa spends months searching for him even returning to their old home before at last moving back to Berlin with Gretel who isolates herself in her room Ralf spends a year more at Auschwitz becoming ruthless and cold to his subordinates A year later he returns to the place where Bruno s clothes were found finding the gap in the fence He deduces how his son disappeared and collapses to the ground in grief Months later Allied troops liberate the camp and Ralf wracked with guilt and self loathing allows himself to be taken prisoner without resistance The book ends with the phrase Of course all of this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again Not in this day and age Genre and style EditThe Boy in The Striped Pyjamas fits into the genre of Holocaust fiction 19 Boyne uses general knowledge about the Holocaust to create a self described fable that relies more on a story of moral truth than historical accuracy 19 This type of literature as shown in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas tends to be told to children from a child s perspective 20 By having one child share the bitter herbs of history with another the novel instills moral obligation in children 20 Kenneth Kidd professor of English at the University of Florida argues that John Boyne s use of fable allows him to explore the darker elements of the Holocaust with more of a cautionary tale resulting 21 Analysis EditSophie Melissa Smith a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton argues that writing a factual story as a fable is damaging as it may produce misconceptions about the Holocaust 21 Examples include the ability of Shmuel to escape work and Bruno s ability to approach an electrified fence 22 Smith claims that Boyne lowers the culpability of Nazis like Bruno s father by not just humanizing them but also creating a sense of obligation in characters like Bruno s father as Bruno s father was a Commandant at a large concentration camp 21 Additionally the depiction of the story told through Bruno creates a greater ignorance of the Nazi regime by using words such as the Fury in place of the Fuhrer and Out with in place of Auschwitz 19 Generally critics see the trivialization of the Nazi regime in this portrayal as damaging to Holocaust education 7 23 Educational implications Edit A 2009 study by the London Jewish Cultural Centre conducted a survey in which 75 of respondents thought Boyne s novel was based on a true story 23 Many students also thought the tragic death of Bruno brought about the end of concentration camps 21 Michael Gray Director of Studies at Harrow School and author of Contemporary Debates in Holocaust Education and Teaching the Holocaust Practical Approaches for Ages 11 18 described the book in 2014 as a curse for Holocaust education 24 In an opinion column for the Jewish Chronicle Noah Max criticised Gray Gray s 2015 study found that respondents almost universally expressed their eagerness for studying the topic and frequently remarked that this the Shoah was one of the most interesting periods of history my italics His sample of 298 Year 9 students from London and Oxford is perilously narrow given the book s widespread popularity and none of his other findings are anywhere near that substantial However even in a sample so small any universal finding is worthy of close attention 25 Criticising the book s accuracy the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum commented in 2020 that the novel should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches about the Holocaust 26 The Melbourne Holocaust Museum while finding the book a powerful introduction to the subject cautions teachers regarding its many inaccuracies 27 Following on from their research in 2016 that suggested that pupils reach mistaken and or misleading conclusions about the Holocaust from the book The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education s 2020 research found that 35 of teachers in England conducting lessons on the Holocaust use it or the film 28 In response to Noah Max s operatic adaptation of the book Professor Nathan Abrams wrote that it is a very tricky task to translate the magnitude of the Holocaust to a younger audience Any device however flawed should be applauded for attempting to do so even if it does not fully succeed It is the task of the reader to go and learn more to put the novel in context 29 Reception EditKathryn Hughes writing in The Guardian calls the novel a small wonder of a book She takes issue with the laxness of Auschwitz and describes the novel as something that borders on fable arguing that Bruno s innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses 5 Nicholas Tucker writing in The Independent calls the novel a fine addition to a once taboo area of history at least where children s literature is concerned He asserts that it is a good depiction of a tragic event that strays away from graphic details with the exception of the killer punch at the end of the novel 30 Ed Wright writing in The Age of Melbourne calls the novel a touching tale of an odd friendship between two boys in horrendous circumstances and a reminder of man s capacity for inhumanity He felt that the depiction of Bruno and Shmuel s friendship was a classic childhood friendship with a naivety of their surroundings He concludes by observing that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is subtitled A Fable and sets out to create a moral story of human nature in a fable format 31 A O Scott writing in The New York Times questioned the author and publisher s choice to intentionally keep the Holocaust setting of the book vague in both the dust jacket summary and the early portion of the novel 32 Scott described how the experiences of the characters were supposed to be represented as separate from the setting of the Holocaust and this creates a lack of the informative nature seen in other novels of Holocaust literature such as Night by Elie Wiesel 32 Scott claims that there is something awkward about the way Boyne manages to disguise and then to disclose the historical context 32 Scott concludes that to mold the Holocaust into an allegory as Boyne does here with perfectly benign intent is to step away from its reality 32 Rabbi Benjamin Blech offered a historical criticism contending that the premise of the book and subsequent film that there could be a child of Shmuel s age in Auschwitz was impossible writing of the book Note to the reader there were no 9 year old Jewish boys in Auschwitz the Nazis immediately gassed those not old enough to work 33 Rabbi Blech affirmed the opinion of a Holocaust survivor friend that the book is not just a lie and not just a fairytale but a profanation Students who read it he warns may believe the camps weren t that bad if a boy could conduct a clandestine friendship with a Jewish captive of the same age unaware of the constant presence of death 33 Holocaust scholar Henry Gonshak rebuts Blech s historical contention in his book Hollywood and the Holocaust He writes that the rabbi found implausible Shmuel s very existence in the camp but states that Blech is factually incorrect 34 While there were no female children records have shown that in 1944 there were 619 male children at the camp ranging in age from one month to fourteen years old 34 Gonshak acknowledges that this presence of children does not take away from the thousands who were murdered in the gas chambers 34 In other media EditIn 2008 two years after being published the novel was made into a movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas directed by Mark Herman 10 In 2017 the novel was adapted into a ballet by the Northern Ballet The score is produced by Gary Yershon 11 Reviews of the ballet are generally negative with Zo and Euml Anderson of The Independent stating the casting of children s parts as adults works against the naivety of a child s viewpoint which the novel captures 35 The Yorkshire Post s review described the score as a relentless assault on the ears but apart from the music it stated that it has redeemable quality in the cast despite being depressing 11 In 2023 the novel was adapted into an opera entitled A Child In Striped Pyjamas by Noah Max 12 He says of Boyne s book It s very hard to convince children to read a book about something as dark and serious as the Holocaust and what I find amazing is that while not all adults get the profound symbolism of the story kids get it They pick up on the fact that the children have the same birthday and are the same child 36 On the appropriateness of depicting the Holocaust through opera Max says the only way to convey its magnitude and in such a way that people understood it was symbolic and not real was through opera 13 The piece was positively received by critics Barry Millington gave A Child In Striped Pyjamas four stars in the London Evening Standard describing the work as intense harrowing drama which invites universal grief 14 In The Telegraph Sir Nicholas Kenyon wrote that the piece was emotionally ambitious vocally eloquent there can be no doubt of the integrity with which the tight knit company deliver it 15 References Edit a b Interview with Children s Author John Boyne 2006 Archived from the original on 21 July 2011 Retrieved 23 February 2007 John Boyne talks About The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas www whatsonlive co uk Retrieved 14 December 2019 Gray Michael 1 December 2014 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education Holocaust Studies 20 3 109 136 doi 10 1080 17504902 2014 11435377 ISSN 1750 4902 S2CID 143231358 Sherwood Harriet 27 January 2022 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas may fuel dangerous Holocaust fallacies The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 23 February 2023 a b c Hughes Kathryn 21 January 2006 Review The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by David Fickling The Guardian Agnew Trevor 9 May 2008 John Boyne Interview Agnew Reading a b Hannah May Randall 31 May 2019 The Problem with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Retrieved 22 November 2021 Stuart J Foster Andy Pearce Alice Pettigrew 2020 Holocaust Education Contemporary Challenges and controversies London UCL Press ISBN 978 1 78735 798 3 OCLC 1159166150 Biography John Boyne Retrieved 15 March 2016 a b The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 2008 at IMDb a b c Review The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Yorkshire Post 4 June 2017 a b North Nic 21 April 2022 Hollywood giant relents over 1m demand to stage Holocaust opera The Jewish Chronicle p 3 a b Coghlan Alexandra Noah Max my fight to make A Child in Striped Pyjamas The Times ISSN 0140 0460 Retrieved 6 March 2023 a b Millington Barry 13 January 2023 A Child in Striped Pyjamas at the Cockpit review intense harrowing drama Evening Standard Retrieved 6 March 2023 a b Kenyon Nicholas 12 January 2023 A Child In Striped Pyjamas Holocaust drama that s emotionally ambitious and diligently delivered The Daily Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Retrieved 6 March 2023 Devlin Martina 22 September 2022 All The Broken Places by John Boyne A sister s lifetime in the shadow of the death camps Irish Independent Retrieved 9 January 2023 a b Boyne John 1 April 2017 My working day I began on Wednesday morning and continued for 60 hours The Guardian Bayer Gerd 2011 World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma DQR Studies in Literature 48 155 174 164 ProQuest 896482224 a b c A debate over the limits of representation Retrieved 5 December 2019 a b Bayer Gerd 2011 World War II Fiction and the Ethics of Trauma DQR Studies in Literature 48 155 174 299 ProQuest 896482224 a b c d Seidel Marc David L Greve Henrich R 24 March 2017 Emergence How Novelty Growth and Formation Shape Organizations and Their Ecosystems Emergence Research in the Sociology of Organizations Vol 50 pp 1 27 doi 10 1108 S0733 558X20170000050020 ISBN 978 1 78635 915 5 Topography of Terror A Documentation trans by Pamela Selwyn Eberl Print Immenstadt 2008 page needed a b Gray Michael December 2014 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education Holocaust Studies 20 3 109 136 doi 10 1080 17504902 2014 11435377 S2CID 143231358 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education Michael Gray Max Noah 4 April 2023 Why I stand by my opera version of Striped Pyjamas The Jewish Chronicle p 18 McGreevy Ronan 5 January 2020 Avoid John Boyne s Holocaust novel Auschwitz Museum advises The Irish Times Dublin Ireland How to study The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in the classroom The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in English secondary schools The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is now an opera the case for adapting the book that the Auschwitz Museum said should be avoided Bangor University Retrieved 6 March 2023 Tucker Nicholas 13 January 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne The Independent Wright Ed 3 January 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas The Age a b c d Scott A O 12 November 2006 Something Is Happening The New York Times a b Blech Benjamin 23 October 2008 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Aish a b c Gonshak Henry 16 October 2015 Hollywood and the Holocaust ISBN 9781442252240 Anderson Zoe 12 June 2017 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas review Clumsy staging of novel The Independent Galton Bridget 4 May 2022 Composer to stage opera of Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Ham amp High Further reading EditGray Michael 3 June 2015 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education Holocaust Studies 20 3 109 136 doi 10 1080 17504902 2014 11435377 S2CID 143231358 Hannah May Randall 31 May 2019 The Problem with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Retrieved 22 November 2021 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas amp oldid 1171929636, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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