Newspaper Articles

Article 1: http://www.deathcamps.org/gas_chambers/gas_chambers_auschwitz.html

Reflection: These are the gas chambers at the concentration camp know as "Auschwits" which was mentioned in the story. Auschwits had 7 gas chambers, and then didn't mention which one Bruno and Shmuel went into specifically, but it was defiantly at this concentration camp in the book.

I chose this article because it instantly reminded me of the book itself, the whole aspect of the gas chambers. Just after reading about the information that's given I thought to myself, that they thought it was a terrible mistake taking Bruno in by accident, when it was actually just a huge mistake in general. And what I mean by that is that the holocaust was a terrible mistake, not just killing one German boy, even though he should have never went under and listened to his dad.

Article 2: Approximately 1.5 million children were killed during the Holocaust. Out of the 1.5, 1.2 million of the children were Jewish. Other tens of thousands of children were Gypsy’s and thousands of were children that were institutionalized and handicapped.

To the Nazis age didn’t matter, they would still take the children. Taken from their homes, the children had watched their parents, siblings and relatives as they were murdered. At the concentration camps they were starved, had untreated illness and cruel labor that they had to do. This would all happen finally until they were sent to the gas chambers.

Reflection: Obviously knowing the German Nazi’s having a strong hatred for the Jews that they would kill them, but then taking institutionalized children and handicapped children is just terrible. Also considering they made them go through hard and brutal labor and starving the children.

I chose to write this article for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas because I found listing a few facts about the Holocaust children would be good. I find it connects to the novel because it mentions what the specifically did to the children because they were “marched” to the gas chamber, things such as starved and harsh labor.

Resources: http://www.projetaladin.org/en/children-and-the-holocaust.html

http://www.annefrank.dk/Default.htm