The idea is interesting. “What if the horrors of Auschwitz were retold from the perspective of a child?”
Oh, but the execution was just so incredibly bad. First, and most of all, it would be useful for an author who puts children front and center to actually meet some children. The central character in the book, Bruno, is purpotedly 9, but seems to think and behave as though he is four.
There are so many discrepancies in the book that it comes across like a high-schooler’s essay, or worse.
- Why would a German child, educated in Germany, find it hard to pronounce Auschwitz and Führer, even after seeing them written down?
- Why would he think Heil Hitler is a way of greeting, and not know what Heil or Hitler mean?
- Germany has not used imperial measurements from the 19th Century, so why are we talking miles and feet?
- How can a boy whose father is a high-ranking official in the Nazi regime does not know what a Jew is?
- He lives next to a concentration camp and does not know what that is?
- There is no way a section of the camp fence was unpatrolled, or could have been lifted enough for a boy to pass under.
- Most importantly, there is no way a frail nine-year-old boy could have survived in a camp. They were gassed upon arrival, as they were just considered unproductive mouths to feed.
What was the author’s thinking here? Did he think that no one would dare say anything negative about his book since it was about the Holocaust?
The Holocaust was very real and one of the greatest horrors ever perpetrated by humans on other humans. This book is a crime against the memory of the Holocaust and should not be allowed to exist.