Sunday, February 28, 2010

On which page are Bruno and Shmuel killed in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne?

In the fateful "Chapter Nineteen: What Happened the Next Day," a tragic turn of events unfolds as Bruno decides to sneak to the camp with his best friend Shmuel.  Bruno is given a pair of striped pajamas so that he can fit in with the crowd at this grisly death camp.  The mission for the day is for Bruno to help Shmuel find his missing father, which ends in failure.  Unfortunately, this is not to be the only terrible news for this day.  Today, many will be sent to the gas chambers to perish,  including the two young friends.  The description of the final march to the death chamber can be found on page 110:



"That's it," he said to Shmuel. "I'm going to catcha cold out here. I have to go home."  But just as he said this, his feet brought him up a set of steps, and as he marched on he found there was no more rain coming down anymore because they were all piling into a long room that was surprisingly warm and must have been very securely built because no rain was getting in anywhere. In fact it felt completely airtight.



On page 111 of the book, Bruno and Shmuel meet their sad demise as they are stuck in the gas chamber to die.  



And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go.



The first line of Chapter 20, which is still on page 111, says that nothing was ever heard of Bruno again, which illustrates that Bruno died in the gas chamber.  

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