DORFGESCHICHTEN »DER JUNGE IM GESTREIFTEN PYJAMA« LESUNG MIT KATHARINA THALBACH

In the organizer's words:

Village stories

Actress Katharina Thalbach reads from the novel "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" by John Boyne.

"We knew nothing." A not uncommon justification by contemporary witnesses to the existence of Nazi concentration camps. One person who really knows nothing is the character of nine-year-old Bruno. The journey begins when Bruno's father is appointed commandant of Auschwitz in 1942 and the family has to move. Bruno only knows that he has to leave his wonderful home to live in a terribly boring house surrounded by barbed wire, where there is no one to play with. "Wipe out", as he calls it. The fact that the people behind the fence wear striped pyjamas and what they are actually doing there remains a mystery to him.

At some point, boredom drives him to the fence, where he meets a boy on the other side, Schmuel. In their daily clandestine conversations, a friendship develops that binds the two of them ever closer together - what is actually going on in the camp remains hidden from Bruno.

The multi-award-winning novel by Irish author John Boyne is not a historical Holocaust documentary, but a fictional story rooted in reality, which is given a remarkable new voice and perspective through the character of nine-year-old Bruno. The author does not explain, but allows his character to observe.