She sat awake in bed on the cold, grey, morning, her eyes puffy and read from crying

all
night, she had been so rude to him, and wished she could right this wrong. The hopeless case did
not see the evil till the end. She wanted the evils to continue, without realizing that they were
bad. The evils cost the hopeless case more than money, they cost her her brother, and she
unwillingly paid for it. The theme of The Boy in Striped Pajamas is the evils of the Holocaust
through the eyes of a child, this is shown through the characters of Gretel, Bruno, and Shmuel.
While sat in bed, she could not help staring at her wall where her maps sat, they had to
go. Gretel decided that she did not like dolls anymore, and in their place she hung maps and
moved pins around (Pg.180). This proves the theme because Gretel dearly loved her dolls,
and to throw them away meant she had to have dedication to supporting the Holocaust. Gretel
then put up maps of Europe and tracked the movements of Hitlers army, and even changed the
pins location on the map daily. Gretel was a victim of the Holocaust, so was her brother, Bruno.
Bruno sat in his nice, warm bed, dreading what he would have to do tomorrow. Well,
why dont we like them? (Pg.183). The Germans did not like the Jews because Hitler blamed
their failing economy on the Jewish people, starting the Holocaust. Through the eyes of Bruno,
he had no clue what was going on when it came to the Holocaust. Bruno was a victim of the
Holocaust, so was his best friend, Shmuel.
Shmuel sat on his creaky bunk bed in a room full of groaning men, almost all in varying
degrees of pain, he wondered whether he would ever see his home in Cracrow again. No, but
when we were told we couldnt live in our house, we had to move to a different part of Cracrow,
where the soldiers built a big wall and we all had to live in the same room (Pg.128). Shmuel
explained that he had to move to a Jewish Ghetto, and through his eyes, since he was 9, that

would be pretty terrifying, spending every day awaiting your impending doom. This likely
caused him to be mature about his fate, and more accepted that he was going to die.
The theme that should be apparent to you now, is the evils of the Holocaust through the
eyes of a child, and is shown through the characters of Gretel, Bruno, and Shmuel. Gretel liked
Nazism, she knew what Hitler was doing the entire time, and admired it still slightly. Bruno did
not even know what his fathers job was, nor did he have any idea what was going on the entire
time. Shmuel, who could have crawled under the fence and escaped, did not do that, bus sat
cross-legged next to it, this shows that he accepted his fate. The author chose to show this theme
to make sure you know the horrors of what happened during Holocaust, and to make sure it
never happens again.