The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

[pam]

I watched this movie tonight. Twice in fact. Extremely touching movie about times during the Holocaust seen through the eyes of a child.

Has anyone else seen it and what did you think of it?

[Gwen]

i watched it. i knew it would be a heavy movie when i got it. but didn't quite expect that ending. very good. but also very heavy. a great one if you aren't in the mood for happy.

[pam]

I think it brought out the point quite well how children are taught hatred.

[Winnie G]

It made me sick, as a step daughter of a Holocaust survivor I use to see his numbers as something silly until I was older and understood.

He was not much older then that young boy when he was taken from his Dutch boarding school, his mother who was not Jewish got him out and shipped to NY (the underground) were my grandfather was on a business trip before the fall of Holland he wandered NY Jewish aria until his father found him sleeping in a potato bin in the back of a deli.

So I see that movie in a different light and the dislike (under statement ) for the Germans runs deep.

I say that knowing from my husbands experience in German serving for six years he came home with the knowledge that the master race mentality still lives with some of the Germans.

He told me a group of them met in the corner of a local bar he use to frequent as a part time job, they thought he did not understand them and only spoke english. After six years he know just what they were saying.

I thought it was lesson learned by the parents and a innocent child was returned home to our FH with a good friend.

[Churchmouse]

When I did my student teaching 25 years ago at an inner city school in Columbus, Ohio the history teacher in the room next to me didn't believe the holocaust was real. He even got his masters degree with a thesis on that topic. Are you aware of how convincing you have to be to defend your position in a thesis? I know it's hard to believe. But it's on file at Ohio State University.

[Lbybug]

i tried reading the book, but it was a bit slow for me, and hard to get into. i was interested, but the pace of it just wasn't fast enough. i'll have to give the movie a try though, as i've heard a lot about it and the topic of the holocaust is very interesting to me.

[Dravin]

Kinda reminds me of the book (IIRC) North to Freedom (I think the movie I am David is loosely based on this), at least in the whole camp (though in this book escape from) as a youth aspect. I also remember watching an Italian (I think) movie about a father who does his utmost to shield his son from whats really happening and does his best passes it off as some kind of great adventure (the movie is a drama, I don't want anyone to think its a comedy about life in a camp), wish I could remember the name.

Edit: The premise of the movie being talked about is what reminds me, I have not seen the movie being featured in this thread.

[pam]

Are you talking about "Life is Beautiful" with Roberto Benigni?

[Dravin]

Are you talking about "Life is Beautiful" with Roberto Benigni?

That sounds right. Tried to watch it with the subtitles (what I normally prefer) but I recall the conversation coming fast and furious enough that I cried uncle and switched to dubbing.

[Iggy]

Kinda reminds me of the book (IIRC) North to Freedom (I think the movie I am David is loosely based on this), at least in the whole camp (though in this book escape from) as a youth aspect. I also remember watching an Italian (I think) movie about a father who does his utmost to shield his son from whats really happening and does his best passes it off as some kind of great adventure (the movie is a drama, I don't want anyone to think its a comedy about life in a camp), wish I could remember the name.

Edit: The premise of the movie being talked about is what reminds me, I have not seen the movie being featured in this thread.

Off topic here- what does IIRC mean exactly?

[Lbybug]

iirc.....if i recal correctly?

[Dravin]

Off topic here- what does IIRC mean exactly?

Ldybug has the right of it, it stands for If I Recall Correctly, short change an I and it becomes Internet Relay Chat. Aren't acronyms fun? :)

[FlaviusHambonius]

Thanks for the heads up Pam.

I have heard about this movie and would love to see it. It really boggles my mind that people actually believe that this horrific occurence never happened.

When I was in the third grade I used to go through these books in the school library about the war, but most of it was about the Holacaust. It was like a encyclopedia series with literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures of the victims, alive and dead, the massive burial holes with all of those poor souls heaped into them. Pictures that remain ingrained in ones mind.

I'm sure they would never have books such as these in grade school nowadays.

[Iggy]

Ldybug has the right of it, it stands for If I Recall Correctly, short change an I and it becomes Internet Relay Chat. Aren't acronyms fun? :)

Not

[KeithLBrown]

I watched the "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" last night in fact, and I have to agree that it was a perfect example of how a child is taught hatred. I thought that it was a very good story told through the eyes of a child, but I was a little surprised, not too much, at how the movie ended. Another movie along these same story lines is "Schindler's List." Yet another movie along these same story lines is Corrie Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place." I have some of the books that she wrote, as well as the movie, in my personal library. Lessons that she learned in the prison camps and later shared with others are real eye openers. For anyone who uses the word "hate" so freely, real life incidents like these should make them want to take a step back and realize what it is they are really saying when they say they hate someone. The incidents that are portrayed in these movies happened in real life and are examples of true hatred in action.