--- title: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable description: When the full extent of the Holocaust became generally known after the end of World War II, the thought that its horror was too monstrous... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/ author: Richard Schickel article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2008-11-07T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-22T15:45:31.350Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable og:description: When the full extent of the Holocaust became generally known after the end of World War II, the thought that its horror was too monstrous... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte674810fa38069b3/698a4af7096a94ab816af513/360_pajamas_1106.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_pajamas_1106.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable twitter:description: When the full extent of the Holocaust became generally known after the end of World War II, the thought that its horror was too monstrous... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte674810fa38069b3/698a4af7096a94ab816af513/360_pajamas_1106.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Richard Schickel](https://time.com/author/richard-schickel/) Nov 7, 2008 5:00 AM UTC  Jack Scanlon as Shmuel and Asa Butterfield as Bruno in The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Jack Scanlon as Shmuel and Asa Butterfield as Bruno in The Boy in Striped Pajamas. David Lukacs / Miramax Film Corp. by [Richard Schickel](https://time.com/author/richard-schickel/) Nov 7, 2008 5:00 AM UTC When the full extent of the Holocaust became generally known after the end of World War II, the thought that its horror was too monstrous to write about in the conventional fictional forms slipped into the conversations of literary intellectuals. Fiction implies maneuver — heroic activity, moral preachment, even softening sentiment, all of which gestures seem trivial and inappropriate in the context of unprecedented, and in some sense inexplicable, evil. Putting the point simply, it is impossible to think of a novel, play or film that conveys the full effect of the Nazi genocide. The works that abide — Anne Frank’s diary, Primo Levi’s recollections of the death camps, _Schindler’s List_ — are all starkly factual. ([See the 100 best albums, movies, TV shows and novels of all time.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1662224,00.html)) And their looming presence in our minds renders a movie like _The Boy in the Striped Pajamas_ ludicrous. It concerns an eight-year-old boy named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) whose career soldier father (David Thewlis) is placed in command of a concentration camp early in the war. The child is unaware of the camp’s function. He thinks it is some kind of farm. All he knows is that he has no friends and no worthwhile activities to divert him. He isn’t even allowed to go to school; he and his sister are tutored at home by a Nazi functionary, while their mother (Vera Farmiga) ditheringly denies what she must know is taking place in the camp. Eventually Bruno wanders through the woods, encounters the barbed wire and Shmuel, an inmate of his own age. He wonders why the boy always wears “pajamas” (actually, of course, the striped prison uniform), thinks perhaps the numbers sewn on this garb are part of some fun game his pal is playing. His misapprehension is reinforced by a movie about camp life his father has produced, showing its inmates singing and dancing and repairing to a café for light refreshment after the day’s work is done. _Striped Pajamas_, written and directed by Mark Herman, requires everyone in it to remain unconscious to every clue — and there are many — about what is happening in the family’s backyard. Even when the gas chambers are fired up, smoke blackening the sky and stench filling their nostrils, they insist the camp is just burning some old clothes. The largest silence is Shmuel’s, who never forthrightly explains his desperate circumstances to Bruno. Maybe he doesn’t want to shock his new friend. More likely his true imprisonment is in the desperate manipulations of this movie, its need to keep everyone in a state of ignorance or denial until Shmuel sneaks Bruno into the camp and toward a supposedly suspenseful, potentially tragic, but totally improbable ending. I don’t think I’ve seen — at least since equally offensive concentration camp fable, _Life Is Beautiful_ — a movie so reliant on human stupidity to achieve its effect, so totally dishonest in its insistence on that quality (which it presents as innocence) to achieve its narrative goals. Bruno and Shmuel may be only eight years old, but that is well past the age of reason, and they are caught up in situation that would force anyone to acquire a shrewdness well in advance of their years. I don’t know if a movie as simpleminded and emotionally shameless as this one definitively proves that fiction is not a suitable vehicle for the consideration of crimes as vast as the Holocaust. But it will do until the next historical travesty comes along. [See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.](https://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek) [See the Cartoons of the Week.](https://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/"},"headline":"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable","datePublished":"2008-11-07T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-22T15:45:31.350Z","description":"When the full extent of the Holocaust became generally known after the end of World War II, the thought that its horror was too monstrous...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte674810fa38069b3/698a4af7096a94ab816af513/360_pajamas_1106.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Schickel","url":"https://time.com/author/richard-schickel/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte674810fa38069b3/698a4af7096a94ab816af513/360_pajamas_1106.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_pajamas_1106.jpg","caption":"Jack Scanlon as Shmuel and Asa Butterfield as Bruno in The Boy in Striped Pajamas.","creditText":"David Lukacs / Miramax Film Corp.","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6909405/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-a-failed-holocaust-fable/","name":"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Failed Holocaust Fable"}}]}] ```