All the things The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas gets wrong about history

John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is one of the most popular books to read in schools for English, Drama and History lessons. But how well does it match up to the real history of the Holocaust? And what is the best way to portray more difficult histories in fiction? Spoiler: don’t do it the John Boyne way.

This was a pretty challenging video to make. First, because of the intense subject matter and second, because I wanted to avoid using any vocabulary that would trigger YouTube's age restriction feature. Usually, I would never self-censor like this, but I really want the video to be accessible to anyone, especially people reading the book at school.

As always, there is so much more to the topic than what I covered, so check out the articles I've linked. Some are even open access. We love to see it.

Quick reads

Benjamin Blech, 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas', Aish, 8 May 2009 https://aish.com/48965671/

Hannah May Randall, 'The Problem with ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre, 31 May 2019, https://holocaustlearning.org.uk/latest/the-problem-with-the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas/

Longer reads

Anna Hunter, 'Tales from over there: the uses and meanings of fairy tales in contemporary Holocaust narratives', Modernism/modernity, 20:1 (2013), 59-75 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274329996_Tales_from_Over_There_The_Uses_and_Meanings_of_Fairy-Tales_in_Contemporary_Holocaust_Narrative

Darius Jackson, '"I know it’s not really true, but it might just tell us …" The troubled relationship between The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and understanding about the Holocaust', Holocaust Education: Contemporary Challenges and Controversies, ed. Stuart Foster, Andy Pearce and Alice Pettigrew (London: UCL Press, 2020), pp. 135-49

D. M. Pinfold, 'The Sins of the Fathers: Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) and Cate Shortland's Lore (2012)', Oxford German Studies, 44:3 (2015), 254-270 https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/55065293/PINFOLD_The_Sins_of_the_Fathers_April_15_.pdf

Jennifer Rich and Mark Pearcy, 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Critical Analysis of a Film Depiction of the Holocaust', The Social Studies, 109:6 (2018), 294-308

Jessica Gildersleeve and Beata Batorowicz, '"He is telling us fairy tales"': parental anxiety and wartime childhood in Life is Beautiful, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Fairy Tales from Auschwitz', Holocaust Studies, 24:1, 26-44

Ned Curthoys, 'The Construction of an Active Reader in two Holocaust themed novels for children: Hitler’s Daughter (1999) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) as Bildungsroman', Children's Literature in Education, 52:2 (2020), 253–270

Michael Gray, 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Blessing or Curse for Holocaust Education?', Holocaust Studies, 20:3 (2014), 109-136

Simone Schweber, '“Breaking Down Barriers” or “Building Strong Christians”: Two Treatments of Holocaust History', Theory and Research in Social Education, 34:1 (2012), 9-33

Notes

1:22 Random House Children's Publishers UK, 'John Boyne on his World War II Novels', YouTube, 30 Sep 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG6Ag40BNAc&t=208s

4:44 'Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau', photograph, May 1944, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Selection_on_the_ramp_at_Auschwitz-Birkenau,1944(Auschwitz_Album)_1a.jpg

5:40 'Juden Raus! board game', c. 1936, The Wiener Holocaust Library, https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/object/obj046/

6:00 'First transport to Auschwitz', photograph, 14 June 1940, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_transport_to_Auschwitz_(Tarn%C3%B3w_-_14th_June_1940).png

6:42 'To the Umschlagplatz', photogaph, c. Apr-May 1944, United States Holocaust Memorial, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stroop_Report_-_Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising_10.jpg

10:14 'Entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau', photograph, c. 1945, Museum of Jewish Heritage, https://mjhnyc.org/blog/from-oswiecim-to-auschwitz/

10:22 'Smoking out the Jews and Bandits', photograph, c. Apr-May 1943, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stroop_Report_-Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising-_10501.jpg

10:34 'These bandits offered armed resistance', photograph, c. Apr-May 1943, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stroop_Report_-_Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising_08.jpg

10:44 'A transport of Jews from Subcarpathian Rus is taken off the trains and assembled on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau', photograph, May 1944, United States Holocaust Memorial, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:May_1944_-_Jews_from_Carpathian_Ruthenia_arrive_at_Auschwitz-Birkenau.jpg

10:50 'Jewish women and children who have been selected for death, walk in a line towards the gas chambers', photograph, May 1944, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa8538

11:00 'Auschwitz I entrance in snow', photograph, Wikimedia Commons, Nov 2007, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auschwitz_I_entrance_snow.jpg

12:10 'The Wolf and the Lamb' Aesop's Fables, c. 1479, Library of Congress, https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2017/04/aesops-fables-at-the-library-of-congress/

14:47 Carl Kinsella, 'Auschwitz Memorial advises "avoiding" The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas', Joe, 2019, https://www.joe.ie/life-style/auschwitz-memorial-advises-avoiding-boy-striped-pyjamas-690186

14:50 Alison Flood, 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas author defends work from criticism by Auschwitz memorial', Guardian, 7 Jan 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/07/john-boyne-defends-work-from-criticism-by-auschwitz-memorial

15:20 'John Boyne talks about The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas', What's On Live, 26 May 2015, https://www.whatsonlive.co.uk/shropshire/interviews/john-boyne-talks-about-the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas/3133

16:50 'What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools', UCL Centre for Holocaust Studies, 2016, https://holocausteducation.org.uk/research/what-do-students-know-and-understand-about-the/

17:02 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in English secondary schools', UCL Centre for Holocaust Studies, 2022, https://holocausteducation.org.uk/research/the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas-in-english-secondary-schools/

19:10 'Pulled from the bunkers by force', photograph, c. Apr-May 1944, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1088110

22:00 Patrick Freyne, 'Can a work of fiction about the Holocaust be inaccurate?' Irish Times, 11 Jan 2020, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/can-a-work-of-fiction-about-the-holocaust-be-inaccurate-1.4135015

22:02 Róisín Ingle, John Boyne: ‘I am not a provocateur. I don’t seek to hurt people’, Irish Times, 25 Jul 2020, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/john-boyne-i-am-not-a-provocateur-i-don-t-seek-to-hurt-people-1.4309925