The boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

~One of the saddest stories I have ever read is The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne.

This is a fictional tale about two boys that become best friends under the rarest circumstances:

This novel is set in Germany during Hitler's regime. Bruno, a nine year old boy and the son of a Nazi commandant, shares his innocence and little understanding of concentration camps.

Bruno's father had been given a great offer that couldn't be refused; becoming the commandant of a concentration camp. So, naturally, Bruno and his family had to move to a place called "Out-With" and must leave their grandparents and friends behind in their former home in Berlin. Like all young boys, Bruno is a young man with an adventurous spirit. He loved to go exploring and even though he had been told that there were places out of bounds, disregard for the rules was no problem for him.

On one of his so called "expeditions" he comes face to face with a boy much smaller and thinner than him. They were both separated by a fence. This boy, later know as Shmuel, always wore a pair of stripped pajamas, no shoes, and an armband with a star on it. Bruno and Shmuel become the best of friends and quickly discover that they both share the same birthday. They kept their meetings a secret and even though they couldn't play, they always found a great topic for conversation: their families, where they were from, how come they have to wear pajamas all day, what was the meaning of the star, etc. One day Bruno's father tells the family that they will have guests for dinner and that they should all be in their behavior. 

Here is the part where I thought it was pretty clever of the author to beautifully tell the story from Bruno's perspective. Bruno's innocence is shown with mispronunciations of "Auschwitz" with "Out-with" and "the Fuhrer" as "the Fury". Not only that, but despite the fact that he is living near a concentration camp and has met Adolf Hitler, his mind doesn't understand what Hitler represents; but when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say " a soldier like my father, one of the good guys."
One afternoon Shmuel confides in Bruno that he is unable to find his father. Bruno promises to help Shmuel  and that in return Shmuel must promise to get Bruno some pajamas so that he will blend in with the others on the other side of the fence.
The time comes when Bruno changes into the stripped pajamas and sneaks onto the other side of the fence. As the boys search for Shmuel's father, the soldiers usher the prisoners, Bruno and Shmuel among them, into the gas chambers where they meet their untimely death hand in hand. Both boys not knowing what is happening, hold hands and Bruno tells Shmuel that he had been the best friend he had ever had.
All that was ever found was Bruno's clothing near the fence. His family could only speculate what had happened to their youngest son.