The Boy In The Striped Pajamas - Thoughts, Application
Bruno is a kind and curious little boy, growing up in Hitler’s Germany sometime around the beginning of WWII. His dad does something for the military. Bruno is not sure what, and it really does not matter too much- he is simply busy trying to be a kid. And they seem in many ways a good family: handsome, laughing, professional, with a nice home. Soon the family must move to the countryside to accommodate his father’s work. The new home is more like a guarded compound. Dad is too busy, older sister enamored with a young soldier, mom working hard to facilitate her husband with his added responsibilities, and so the young man quickly finds life to be monotonous. Then he notices from an upstairs window the farm located a distance away. Who are those people and what are the activities on this farm? And what’s with the smokestacks regularly belching out such horrid odors? Answers come to the child from many people, and all evasive. Dad simply says it is about business, and the persons on the farm are “not really people”. Mom is extremely uncomfortable about the whole matter, and offers no reply. Bruno is surprised to learn that the one person from the farm that he comes to know, a crippled and fearful little man who peels potatoes for the compound, was a physician in a far-removed previous life.
One day Bruno sneaks from his guarded home to venture over to the farm. There he spies barbed wire, electric fences, vicious dogs and armed soldiers, and dirty and strange people wearing what appear to be striped pajamas. Divided by the fence, he manages to strike up a friendship with a little boy named Schmuel. Regularly they rendezvous at the same spot. Bruno brings him food. With childish simplicity, he becomes more and more fascinated with the mystery of the farm. To him, it offers excitement and adventure, like the fantasy novels he likes to read.
The film is dark, the end devastating.
This was a film that I left in silence. It was necessary to step aside for a moment, for composure. And I’ve thought long and hard about it.
How easily evil becomes tolerable, and ultimately acceptable. The Germans, at least in this movie, are too much like me for personal comfort. They are a good, loving, decent family. They go to church. They laugh. They treat people like themselves with considerable kindness. And, directly or implicitly, they methodically and relentlessly participate in the deaths of millions of defenseless human beings.
So, how do such beautiful and God-fearing people end up doing such awful things? For dad, it is simply a matter of duty to a Higher Calling. For mom, it involves willful ignorance. It takes wars and guns to overcome the former. At this moment, I am most concerned about the latter. She loved her husband, her nice and comfortable life, and her adorable son. And she tenaciously wanted such to be the definition of her life. Sure, she knew about the darker elements of her culture. But, she devised a life strategy that she thought would be sufficient for herself and those she cared about the most. She chose willful ignorance about the issues, and intentional distance from the people.
This woman likely did not “hate” Jews. She did not know any, and made sure never to have to look one in the eye. Concerning her husband’s work and the putrid smoke from the ovens far in the distance? Well, those things were concerns of national business, and those smokestacks were far off in the distance. And, besides, she had shopping to do!
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A friend, and fellow church goer, said he would not vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. He said blacks were violent by nature and that Obama was not qualified, because of race, to be president. I listened with discomfort, but said nothing. And I’ve thought about that moment quite a bit. I have sought diligently to be tolerant of his statement and justifying of my silence. But in the end, I sat silent because his warped beliefs furthered my ultimate vote.
Yes. I may not be like Bruno’s dad. But I am too much like his mom.
