Children tend to be innocent and carefree, unless their parents are in war. Children will experience something terrible, regardless of whether they are on the winning side or not. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas movie and the book Night, written by Elie Wiel, both show the child’s point of views. Both pieces, despite their differences in perspective on the war and the opposing sides, have some similarities.
Night is a memoir by Elie Wiesel about his experience during the Holocaust. The book begins with a normal life, but then the novel takes a dramatic turn when he is transferred to Auschwitz. It describes the horrors and brutal treatment of the Germans at the concentration camp. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (John Boyne) is a film about Burno the child of a Nazi officer. Burno is the antithesis of the typical Nazi child. He helps his Jewish friend who lives in a local camp, despite being ignorant of the situation. Even by reading the summaries of both works, one can easily see the differences. Due to their ethnicity, there were many differences between Elie and Bruno. Bruno was German while Elie was Jew. The war and Holocaust would cause a contrast. Bruno was ignorant, whereas Elie knew what he was doing. Bruno didn’t know what was going on and it costed him his life. Elie, however, had the information about the camps and this helped him to survive, as he knew exactly what he needed to do and what sacrificial offerings if any were necessary. The camp was seen differently by both men. Bruno thought at first that the camp is a farm. Later, he realized that it’s a concentration camp for Jews. Bruno has never witnessed all the cruelty. Elie has seen the horrors of the camps first-hand. There are some similarities between these two views despite their contrasting perspectives.
Both boys, unlike others, saw hardships in a child-like way. It was because they were so involved in this war that their relationship with their fathers suffered. Both boys were forced to leave their homes for different reasons. Both boys lost their family and friends as a result of their uprooting. Their lives also share a barbed-wire fence. The first thing they both saw was a barbed wire fence, like the one Bruno saw in his back yard and the wire that surrounded his old house in the ghettos. These similarities help the reader make connections across the timeline, despite the fact that they are expressing different views.
Both pieces have similarities in their perspectives despite their many differences. The Holocaust is seen from two different perspectives in the novel Night and the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Elie wanted to honor the dead and make a lasting impact on the living by telling their story. The film did the same. Elie, Bruno and other children were not the same after the war.