At the beginning of chapter 14, Bruno visits Shmuel and notices that he has a black eye. When Bruno asks Shmuel how he received the black eye, Shmuel becomes silent and shakes his head. Shmuel does not want to discuss how he received his black eye and tells Bruno that he doesn't want to talk about it. As a naive child, Bruno simply assumes that Shmuel had a conflict with a bully who ended up punching him in the eye. Bruno assumes that there are bullies on the opposite side of the fence and recalls being around bullies back home in Berlin. Bruno experiences the urge to help Shmuel but cannot think of any way to help him, and he understands that Shmuel simply wants to forget about the incident that resulted in his black eye. Despite Shmuel's black eye, Bruno continues to ask him if he can crawl underneath the fence to play, but Shmuel prevents him from doing so.
One afternoon, when Bruno sees Shmuel, he notices that he has a black eye. He is immediately curious, so naturally asks him how he got it. But Shmuel, not wanting to get into trouble, doesn't want to tell him. Bruno also wants to know if he can come round to the other side of the fence and play with Shmuel. For obvious reasons, however, that simply isn't possible.
Bruno's actions underline not just his natural inquisitiveness, but also his total naivety about the concentration camp and what goes on there. His world is still that of an innocent boy who has successfully been inured by his family from the horrors of concentration camp life and the warped ideology that it so starkly illustrates. To him, Shmuel is just another boy, albeit one who always wears striped pajamas. As Bruno has absolutely no understanding of the violence and brutality of the concentration camp, he assumes that Shmuel is being bullied by another boy. That, he reasons, would explain the black eye.
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