History can be a kick in the teeth.  That does not make it any less important to study.  What also often occurs with the past, though, is how it can be manipulated to fit an agenda.  This is what happened in Nazi Germany, and there are some working to make this be a relality today in the United States.  Why do I make such comparisons?  Because when you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C., these days regarding the crackdown on illegal immigration and the justification for rounding up Jews in Europe, you can hear some scary parallels.  I feel somewhat vindicated in saying these things because Pope Leo XIV and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have called out the administration for their treatment of such people, using rhetoric that echoes the Church’s condemnation of the Holocaust and other fascist atrocities.  We live in fraught times, and speaking out on such matters is risky.  What it takes is the simplicity of a child, and that is what is focused on in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008).

You can tell that eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is not The Boy in the Striped Pajamas from the outset if for no other reason than he is not wearing the title set of clothing.  Instead, he is playing carefree in Berlin with his friends.  It is early in World War II, so this is less of a problem.  Things are about to change.  His father, Ralf (David Thewlis), is a high-ranking Nazi officer, and he is assigned to be the commandant of a concentration camp.  These details are beyond Bruno, who only wishes to continue playing with his mates.  He is not happy about the move, and skulks for most of the going away party.  Ralf assuages some of Bruno’s fear by saying the new house might be better, and that the boy could make new friends.  These sentiments are repeated by Elsa (Vera Farmiga), Bruno’s mother, who encourages him to play to his heart’s content.  It is not long after their arrival that he notices a curious feature in the landscape beyond the trees outside his bedroom window.  To his untrained eyes, it looks like a farm, but the viewer will know that it is a concentration camp.  He is not aware of such things and wonders whether there will be any children he can befriend.  Upon hearing of Bruno’s misunderstanding, Elsa and Ralf tell their son that he must avoid going in the back garden.  Further reminders of their living situation are brought to their attention when Pavel (David Hayman), appears in their kitchen.  He is an inmate at the camp, and he is tasked with doing menial work around the house.  Elsa warns Bruno to stay away from him.  For the moment, Bruno does as he is told until Pavel witnesses the boy fall from his swing and scrape his knee.  Pavel brings Bruno inside and bandages the leg.  During their interaction, Bruno wonder why he is not brought to a doctor, to which Pavel replies that he is one.  Bruno does not understand this, and the matter is discovered by Elsa when she gets home.  Mom is guarded, but thankful.  To keep Bruno and his sister, Gretel (Amber Beattie), occupied, Ralf arranges a tutor to continue their education.  It is full of Nazi rhetoric, which Bruno mostly ignores but Gretel buys into fervently.  One of the reasons for Bruno’s skepticism is that he has befriended Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy in the camp.  Their meeting is the result of Bruno’s penchant for exploration, even in places he is told not to go.  Naturally, he finds his way to the barbed wire fence which is where he initially encounters Shmuel.  To Bruno, he is happy to find a peer, but he does not fully comprehend why they are unable to fully interact.  Instead, they talk as boys would, even though it is equally mysterious to Shmuel as to why Bruno is so clueless about the reality of the situation.  All the same, they continue to commiserate through the barrier until one day, Bruno is surprised to see Shmuel inside the house.  The Jewish boy has been brought there to clean glassware, but his German counterpart takes it as social visit.  They start talking and Bruno gives Shmuel some food.  This is the state of things until they are walked in on by Lieutenant Kurt Kotler (Rupert Friend), Ralf’s assistant.  Lieutenant Kotler is enraged by the fraternization.  Shmuel tries to defend himself by saying they are friends, but Bruno denies having ever met the inmate.  Bruno regrets doing so immediately.  He gets further bad news when he is told that his grandmother, Nathalie (Sheila Hancock), has been killed in Berlin during a bombing raid.  The family returns to the German capital for the funeral, and Bruno finally reconnects with Shmuel upon getting back from their trip.  At the same time, Elsa has become aware that Ralf has been assigned to a death camp, and for weeks has been devastated by this revelation.  After much fighting, it is decided that she would take the children and stay with another relative.  This means that Bruno will again be moving.  Upon relating this development to Shmuel, Bruno is informed that his friend’s father is missing.  They make a pact to locate Shmuel’s dad together.  On the following morning, Bruno arrives with a shovel to dig under the fence and Shmuel produces a set of camp clothes.  With Elsa trying to depart, she becomes frantic when she cannot locate Bruno.  For the two boys, they get caught up with a group of people headed to the extermination chambers.  It is too late by the time Elsa alerts Ralf.  Ralf gets to the execution site just after the zyklon B is dumped into the room, killing Bruno and Shmuel.

As I said, history can be a kick in the teeth, and the death of Bruno and Shmuel at the end of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas underscores this fact.  Speaking of fact, there has been some that have called into question the film’s historical validity.  For example, most children were immediately put to death upon arriving at the extermination camps.  While I am all for complete historical accuracy, such arguments are a moot point.  It is enough that the Holocaust occurred, and its painful reality provides a backdrop for this story.  What I wanted to say about this from a Catholic perspective is to discuss the innocence of children, and what the Bible teaches about that being the best path for experiencing God.  Yet, there is a deeper issue with innocence here.  In reading further how this movie, which is based on a book, has been received, there have been those who have said that it normalizes the behavior of the perpetrators of this state-sponsored violence.  This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why the Church does not support authoritarian/totalitarian regimes of any political ilk.  History shows that they are among the worst human rights violators, and life is precious for Catholics.  This is why the pope and other Church leaders have spoken out against what has been happening in this country.  The tendency is to want to say that if people just obey rather than speaking their minds, then nothing bad will happen.  When they do not adhere to this idea, it would suggest a lack of innocence.  The ones imputing that guilt, though, are the ones who hold the power, which is not always exercised correctly.  It is only those with no knowledge of a situation that are truly innocent, “those” being children.  It is not simply that Bruno does not understand why Shmuel is in the predicament that he is in, he also has trouble believing anyone is capable of doing these kinds of horrible acts, least of all his father.  Incidentally, this is partially why there have been some that have contended that this tragedy never occurred.  Again, it did, and that is why I do not fuss too much with some of the details here.

Then again, I understand the importance of getting the small details correct, and I can see where some might make this charge against The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  What needs to be emphasized is that rounding people up based on an arbitrary ethnic category is inhumane.  This film contributes to that cause.