I just finished watching the most tragic film I have ever seen. I know it sounds cliche, but I was in tears by the end. The irony of the plot was so unbearably simnple, but overly complex.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas takes place during WWII in Germany. An eight-year-old named Bruno whose father is a head officer for the Nazis wanders behind his family's new house and finds a POW camp. You could hardly call the people there prisoners of war though. Their only crime was their religion.
Bruno, being only a child, thinks its a farm where people where pajamas. He meets a another boy his age sitting inside the camp just out of the view of the soldiers. The boy's name is Shmawl (I apologize if I've spelled that wrong, I've never heard the name before).
Over the next few weeks, Bruno and Shmawl become friends, and Bruno brings Shmawl food. Eventually, Shmawl is sent to work in Bruno'
s house. "They wanted some one with small fingers," he said. While speaking with Shmawl, Bruno offers him a cake. Being starved half to death, Shmawl eats it and is caught by Bruno's father's assistant. He tells the assistant that Bruno gave it to him, but Bruno (scared to death) denies knowing his friend.
When Bruno next visits the camp, Shmawl has a swollen cut on his forehead. Not only that, but his father is missing.
As I watched the film, and listened to the boys talk, I knew the horrible things that were happening in the camp. The things that they didn't know were happening.
If you want to watch he movie, the rest is a spoiler.
Bruno is moving away at his mother's request, so he decides to help Shmawl find his father. Bruno wanted to show how sorry he really was for betrying Shmawl. The boys hatch a plan to get Bruno inside the camp. Shmawl steels an extra pair of "pajamas" and Bruno brings a shovel and digs under the electric fence.
Ever since seeing a video on the camps, Bruno beleives that they are nice places to be. His father had the video made to impress officials higher in power than himself. Brunbo is confused when they are inside "the huts" (as Shmawl calls them) and sees hundreds of malnourished, bruised, sick people. The soldiers soon find the hole under the fence and an alarm goes off. Everyone is rushed outside, across the camp, and into a huge room. The soldiers take their clothes. Shmawl tells Bruno "Don't worry, its just a shower."
Meanwhile, Bruno's mother has realized her son is missing and is searching frantically. She finds her husband, and he enrolls his soldiers to search, knowing the possibilities. Eventually, after dashing through a dense forst in the pouring rain, Bruno's mother comes across the clothes he left behind as he entered the camp.
Bruno's father runs to the front gate and send more soldiers to search the now empty hut. As they search, someone pours poison into the room where Bruno and Shmawl stand side by side with so many other innocent people.
The last scene in the movie shows the sealed door to the room, then smoke pouring from a chimey into the sky, and Bruno's mother weeping while clutching her son's clothes.

This film is so real, I can't even explain. It shows you the pain real people suffered. Even if we didn't know them, even if they've been gone a long time, they were real people, just like us. Let's not forget them.