The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

        Bruno is an eight-year-old boy living in Berlin during World War II. His father is a soldier in the Nazi Party. However, Bruno does not know much about his father's job. Bruno returns home from school one day and his mother says his father is promoted to the commandant at Auschwitz, and the family must move. It does not take Bruno long to notice the people in striped pyjamas and hats living and working beyond the nearby fence. One day, Bruno meets a boy along the fence. The boy is named Shmuel. He is also eight years old. The boys become fast friends. Shmuel is brought to the house to tackle the extra work. Bruno gives Shmuel some food and a soldier catches Shmuel eating it. Bruno, afraid of getting into trouble, denies knowing Shmuel and does not admit to giving the food to him. Bruno does not see Shmuel for a week. When Shmuel does return to meet at the fence, Bruno sees many bruises on him. Later, Bruno's mother decides to return to Berlin with the children. Bruno tells Shmuel, and Shmuel shares that he cannot find his father. They make plans to meet the next day when Shmuel will bring a pair of striped pyjamas for Bruno, and they will look for his father together. They meet, and Bruno slips under a small opening in the fence, and they begin to look for Shmuel's father, but soldiers herd them with a group of others into a dark building. The boys die together in the gas chamber.

 

The relationship between identity politics and religion is one of the most discussed issues throughout history. It is ordinary in every period that people are excluded from society because of their different characteristics. This difference sometimes happens because of skin color, sometimes because of race, and sometimes because of religion. One of the most important examples of the exclusion of people from society and even the extermination of people just because of their religion, and the most well-known by people, is the brutal policies of  Hitler and the Nazi party on the Jews to create the German superior race during World War II. It is really painful for people to live in concentration camps, regardless of their age, just because of their religion. This period, called the Holocaust, has been the subject of different films, books, and documentaries. The Holocaust is a period that leaves people with deep sadness every time it is remembered. One of the best films of this period is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Adapted from the book of the same name, the film tells the audience about the Holocaust through the eyes of an 8-year-old boy. Jews were driven from their homes and forced to work in different jobs in concentration camps. For example, in the movie, one of the housekeepers, Pavel, was a doctor. What is done to people in concentration camps reveals the height of discrimination and racism. Jews were not treated like human beings. As seen in a scene in the movie, "The thing is, Bruno, those people... they are not even people at all." (Bruno's father says to Bruno) Jews are not even human. "Jews who are not human" worked in very harsh conditions, suffered severe torture, and were eventually killed horrifically. 

 

        Identity politics looks nice and innocent from the outside because people of the same race, color, or religion support each other as a society. Even though it wasn't called identity politics at the time this movie shows the audience how much harm it can do to people when it reaches the extreme. Even though it wasn't called identity politics at the time.