The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
This was the last book I read while on holiday in Wales back in October, but for some reason I didn’t get around to writing about it then. (I thought I had, which is probably why I didn’t).
This book came to me much hyped, so I was a bit nervous about it. I’d also understood that it was a children’s book so clearly in the back of my mind was the thought that maybe I might give this to Alex to read at some point. Well, not yet, that’s for sure.
Interestingly, since Alex had apparently “done” the second world war at school last year, I asked him if he’d done anything about the holocaust. No, he hadn’t. He’d done the battle of Britain, and I think that’s about it. He’d seen a tiny reference (in a contemporary newspaper report) to the bombing of Germany, but only in the context of “this is what they did to us, so …” Talk about a biased view of history. Of course while he was doing it I was also telling him a little bit about the Eastern Front, the war in the pacific, etc. I’d imagine it would be easy otherwise for them to come back from lessons thinking that the second world war was fought between England and Germany and England won. Is this relevant to the book? Well, kind of, actually, yes. Wait and see.
And it’s interesting too that they don’t seem to have touched on the holocaust, particularly as many people would have you believe that was the reason for the war in the first place. (My understanding is that in fact at the time hardly anyone had any idea of what was going on, and this has just been used as a post-hoc justification for the war in an era where some people are at last starting to think that “king and country” / “my country right or wrong” / “us and them” isn’t actually quite enough to kill people for). Personally I think the holocaust, and events like it – for there are others similar in type, if not on the same industrial scale – is the most important thing to learn about if you’re teaching that period of history in school. But that still leaves the question as to at what age children are really ready for that. Alex is particularly sensitive, so while he’d be quite capable of reading this book on the one hand, and probably wouldn’t be remotely interested in it on the other (it’s about people, he prefers books with talking dinosaurs), I don’t think I’m ready to deal with how upset he’d be if he read on to the end. I found the ending quite upsetting. I don’t know how he’d cope.
All of which is not in any way to denigrate this book. I think it’s a great idea trying to write about the holocaust in a way that is personal, not just dry and factual, and that makes sense of it for younger readers. And why choose a German as the protagonist? That’s the best thing. I hear many people say that history is important because it tells you where you come from. And I think that’s absolutely wrong, and the reason I hate so much of the way history is taught. History is important, if it’s important, because it allows us to learn from the past. Not just our own past, but the past of all of humanity. The battle of Britain is no more relevant to us today than, say, the siege of Plataea or the battle of Tsushima. History taught that way is worse than no history at all, for it serves only to reinforce national prejudice – that history is about the great things we have done and the terrible things that have been done to us. In the book, tremendous importance is being placed on the teaching of history within the curriculum, and in particular, that kind of history. The injustices done to Germany after the first world war, the heroic past of the German nation. So that the children in the book can understand where they have come from – and to give them a context that makes the holocaust seem reasonable.
On the contrary, what we should be learning about in particular, if we are learning about British history, is things like the fire-bombing of Dresden, the invention of concentration camps during the Boer war, the highland clearances, the treatment of the poor in Dickensian London, the evils of colonization – our own, as well as others – and of the slave trade. The things that teach us not to confuse “good” and “evil” with “us” and “them”.
That’s why the book had to have a German protagonist. If you understand the holocaust as something done by other people, by “them” – then you fall foul of the old maxim: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In a country where you can be locked up for a month without trial or charge, where ‘immigration’ is a dirty word, where people picket a workplace because it employs foreigners, where a network of cameras watch people with dark faces going about their daily lives because other people find them threatening, this lesson is as relevant to us now as it ever was.
This book came to me much hyped, so I was a bit nervous about it. I’d also understood that it was a children’s book so clearly in the back of my mind was the thought that maybe I might give this to Alex to read at some point. Well, not yet, that’s for sure.
Interestingly, since Alex had apparently “done” the second world war at school last year, I asked him if he’d done anything about the holocaust. No, he hadn’t. He’d done the battle of Britain, and I think that’s about it. He’d seen a tiny reference (in a contemporary newspaper report) to the bombing of Germany, but only in the context of “this is what they did to us, so …” Talk about a biased view of history. Of course while he was doing it I was also telling him a little bit about the Eastern Front, the war in the pacific, etc. I’d imagine it would be easy otherwise for them to come back from lessons thinking that the second world war was fought between England and Germany and England won. Is this relevant to the book? Well, kind of, actually, yes. Wait and see.
And it’s interesting too that they don’t seem to have touched on the holocaust, particularly as many people would have you believe that was the reason for the war in the first place. (My understanding is that in fact at the time hardly anyone had any idea of what was going on, and this has just been used as a post-hoc justification for the war in an era where some people are at last starting to think that “king and country” / “my country right or wrong” / “us and them” isn’t actually quite enough to kill people for). Personally I think the holocaust, and events like it – for there are others similar in type, if not on the same industrial scale – is the most important thing to learn about if you’re teaching that period of history in school. But that still leaves the question as to at what age children are really ready for that. Alex is particularly sensitive, so while he’d be quite capable of reading this book on the one hand, and probably wouldn’t be remotely interested in it on the other (it’s about people, he prefers books with talking dinosaurs), I don’t think I’m ready to deal with how upset he’d be if he read on to the end. I found the ending quite upsetting. I don’t know how he’d cope.
All of which is not in any way to denigrate this book. I think it’s a great idea trying to write about the holocaust in a way that is personal, not just dry and factual, and that makes sense of it for younger readers. And why choose a German as the protagonist? That’s the best thing. I hear many people say that history is important because it tells you where you come from. And I think that’s absolutely wrong, and the reason I hate so much of the way history is taught. History is important, if it’s important, because it allows us to learn from the past. Not just our own past, but the past of all of humanity. The battle of Britain is no more relevant to us today than, say, the siege of Plataea or the battle of Tsushima. History taught that way is worse than no history at all, for it serves only to reinforce national prejudice – that history is about the great things we have done and the terrible things that have been done to us. In the book, tremendous importance is being placed on the teaching of history within the curriculum, and in particular, that kind of history. The injustices done to Germany after the first world war, the heroic past of the German nation. So that the children in the book can understand where they have come from – and to give them a context that makes the holocaust seem reasonable.
On the contrary, what we should be learning about in particular, if we are learning about British history, is things like the fire-bombing of Dresden, the invention of concentration camps during the Boer war, the highland clearances, the treatment of the poor in Dickensian London, the evils of colonization – our own, as well as others – and of the slave trade. The things that teach us not to confuse “good” and “evil” with “us” and “them”.
That’s why the book had to have a German protagonist. If you understand the holocaust as something done by other people, by “them” – then you fall foul of the old maxim: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In a country where you can be locked up for a month without trial or charge, where ‘immigration’ is a dirty word, where people picket a workplace because it employs foreigners, where a network of cameras watch people with dark faces going about their daily lives because other people find them threatening, this lesson is as relevant to us now as it ever was.
posted by tomdg at 10:58 AM
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