The Boy in the Striped Pajamas deals with the rise of Hitler by looking at the atrocities Hitler encouraged through the eyes of a child: Bruno. By making this particular child our narrator as well as the son of a Nazi commandant, the reader is able to watch the confusion of an innocent boy as he comes upon the evidence of Hitler's rise to power. One of the most revealing scenes about Hitler's rise to power is the dinner scene where Hitler and Eva come to dinner at Bruno's house. We have learned to love our narrator by this time, and Bruno already despises Hitler due to his prideful conduct at dinner. Bruno's innocence continues by calling Hitler "the Fury" instead of the Führer. Further, Bruno witnesses the treatment of the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas through the character of Shmuel. When Bruno meets Shmuel, he is dirty, dressed in a striped uniform, thin, gaunt, and without shoes. Bruno's innocence continues here as he misinterprets life in the concentration camp as life on a brutal farm. Bruno cannot accept the treatment of Shmuel, so he brings him extra food and company. Bruno's innocence is lost when he escapes "into" the camp and is killed in the gas chamber. It is a piece of brutal irony that the son of a Nazi commandant would be killed in this way.
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