The Boy In Striped Pajamas

Shusli and I watched "The Boy In Striped Pajamas" last night.

The poetic justice of the film, and I believe by extension, the book by John Boyne (which I haven't read) was fascinating to say the least.

I did, however, have problems with the logistics and if one has any understanding of the death camps of that era knows there were VAST logistical problems in this story. It is pure fantasy, but then again, so is "Inglorious Bastards."

The film is about an 8-year-old Nazi boy who befriends an 8-year-old Jewish boy who is in a concentration camp. They create their friendship from opposite sides of the barbed wire. In hopes (and here I'll spoil the end) of finding the Jewish boy's father, the Nazi boy disguises himself as a prisoner and digs his way into the camp where he is rounded up and gassed.

Poetic justice indeed for his high ranking Nazi father whose work it is to eliminate the Jewry and others from his nation.

The mother, who allegedly knows nothing of the treatment of the Jews is ashamed of her husbands work. Again, knowing the logistics of Nazi Germany at the time, this is UNBELIEVABLE. Most folk knew what was going on. It wasn't until they were FORCED to see the concentration camps after their liberations that they actually understood the implications of its inhumanity. Kind of like how Americans only see America as true and holy and good but don't see the slaughter in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pine Ridge, Siletz, Mexico, South America, all of Africa, etc., etc., etc. But if Americans did allow themselves this knowledge, they would feel they were in the right or it was justified, etc. Plus I've seen many a photo of Germans patronizing stores with products made from Jew skins, mostly lampshades. You know, like Americans used to make razor straps from Red Nigger skins, or decorate their hat bands with the genitals of Red Nigger women, or tobacco pouches from Red Nigger ballsacks. I mean...C'MON!

The serious logistical errors are enormous. One barbed wire fence around the death camp when most had two with Nazi guards and dogs constantly on patrol. When folk were SHOT for getting too close to the fence. The complicity of the German people. The strong bodies of those inside the camp when they were usually starved to literal skin and bones.

Although I have an appreciation for the poetic justice in this film and book, I have to harken to "The Education of Little Tree." "The Education of Little Tree," is a best-selling novel about a Cherokee Indian child raised in the hills of the South. The author, Forrest Carter, stated it was semi-autobiographical. Oddly, however, turns out Forrest Carter's real name is Asa Carter, a former member of the KKK who participated in the castration of a black man in '56 and has absolutely no Indian ancenstry. "At least someone is telling your story," I've heard many a time. Ward Churchill is telling our stories. Joy Harjo is telling our stories. Shusli is telling our stories. Jim Craven is telling our stories. Folk just don't feel as comfortable about Red Niggers telling their own stories as they do with the "sympathetic white characters" telling our stories. I get the same feel off of this movie/book. If you want to see life from a concentration camp, make a movie of "Night" by Elie Weisel. If you want to know what the war was really all about, make a movie about "Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949" by Charles Gigham.

I did appreciate the poetic justice, but the story was unbelievable. I did appreciate the value to possibly make folk think. However, the holocaust was not an emotionally moving event. There are truer stories of folk who saved Jews from death at the expense of their own lives. There are stories of Jews who sold out their own people in order to help create their own homeland now Israel (see: "The Transfer Agreement," by Edwin Black). There are other stories that need to be told. This one could have been told better, more realistically, more honestly, and provoked people to really think about what happened and why.