The Memoir Night Vs the Movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Comparative Essay

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World War II was a horrible war that killed millions, but sadly most of the casualties were innocent civilians. The Nazis were the driving force of killing civilians during the war with their death camps, or as they are known as concentration camps. During the war they targeted mainly Jews and the handy capped. Night and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas both gave views of the Holocaust; one from the view of a Jew, and one of a fictional boy whose father was a Nazi general. Since they both gave different views of the Holocaust, they will both have similarities and differences.

One of the major differences between Night and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is the point of view. Night is a non-fiction book written by Ellie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. While The Boy in the Stiped Pajamas is a fictional movie about the son of a Nazi general who is the head of a Nazi concentration camp. During Night Ellie explains how he was taken from his home and then forced to work in Auschwitz or die. He explained in the first-person point of view how he and his father struggled to survive and all the horrific sites they had witnessed. While The Boy in the Stiped Pajamas gives a very convincing story it is in fact a fictional story. The story is told in the third person limited point of view. The main character Bruno is the son of a Nazi commandant who moved his family near a Nazi death camp. All the while keeping the secret of what the camp was from his kids who were not allowed outside of the front yard. One day while Brunos mother was away running errands he snuck out of the yard and went exploring. Where he comes across a barbed wire fence at the edge of the camp where he comes across a small Jewish boy and thinks he is a farmer that is dressed in pajamas. He then becomes friends with the kid and begins to sneak him food whenever one day the kids dad has not come back Bruno decides to help the kid look for his dad. While he is there looking, he and his new friend they are taken to a gas chamber and poisoned to death. Whenever his family learns of his disappearance they begin looking frantically for Bruno. By the time they make it to the camp, it is too late and he is already dead in the gas chamber along with his friend. The two different stories gave a very different perspective on how people viewed the Holocaust and the death camps.

Another big difference how the concentration camp is run. In Night the camp is a brutal place where beatings occur every day and public executions are every other day. It shows the camp as a place where there is no freedom for the Jews who must work to stay alive. They are forced to go on extremely long runs with those who cant keep up the pace they are killed mercilessly. Meanwhile in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas the camp is not as harsh and cruel. From what little we see of the camp some of the prisoners are not monitored and have practically free roam of the camp. The movie doesnt tell of any beatings or any public executions. The people in the camp do not look extremely starved like they are described as in Night.

Even though both stories are different they do have some similarities. One of the major similarities is that they both show the consequences of not doing what you are told to do. In the beginning of the book Night Moishe the Beadle warned Elie and his family about what the Germans would do to them. He told everybody that they would kill them and force them to work and then die. Whenever they didnt listen to him, they soon found out that they would soon be sent to the most awful concentration camp, Auschwitz. Where Ellies mom and sister were killed as soon as they arrived at the camp, they were put into a gas chamber and they were buried in an unmarked grave. His father later died after he got dysentery and later died of his sickness. Because they did not listen to Moishe the Beadle, Ellie lost his mom, dad, and little sister. In The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Bruno did not listen to his mother when she said, do not go exploring in the back yard. Whenever he didnt listen to her a found the camp and befriended a Jew in the camp. When he continually disregarded her rules and went to help his new friend look for his dad, he ended up being taken to a gas chamber where he was killed, while his family was looking for him around there home and in the front yard. By the time they went and looked at the camp he was already killed. That shows the consequences of not taking the advice from others or just plainly not listening to what people tell you.

World War II was the most devastating war ever with millions of innocent people being killed. Sadly, enough most of the citizens who were killed were Jewish families that were sent to the Nazi concentration camp and there they were treated like animals and slaughtered like cattle in a butcher shop. The two stories Night and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas give two very different views on the Holocaust with both having some very big differences like one being fictional and one being nonfiction and some similarities like one wrong choice could lead to death.

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