MovieChat Forums > The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) Discussion > Guards dont notice the two boys meeting?...

Guards dont notice the two boys meeting?


I find it hard to believe that there is no guard who would notice the "get togethers" between the two boys, i mean one thing is talking for 3-4 minutes but you could tell they talked for at least hour a day and then as the movie/story developes start to play and share cake and so on. How is that going unnoticed by the guards? All we hear is occasional whistling for all the jews to gather together.

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Several of the high school kids who saw this at the school where I teach said the same thing. Or at least they couldn't get why they didn't see the one boy digging the hole. Of course if they had, you would have no story.

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I think that's the point. There are certainly contrivances in the movie but there's really no other way to allow for their meetings.

Yours sincerely, General Joseph Liebgott

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The movie is more than a little contrived. Yes, without the contrivances, there wouldn't be a story. But they went a little heavy-handed and it requires more than the usual amount of suspension of disbelief.

Robin Williams' version of "Jakob the Liar" is often dissed (I could only see one part that I would have made sure hit the cutting room floor as too contrived and hardly believable; if you can understand the ending, that is), the rest required only the usual amount of suspension of disbelief. But it's a far better movie about the plight of Jews in WWII and includes a small girl. "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" is a much better film about what Jewish children had to go through. No contrivances.

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I agree that an element of artistic license was used, but also bear in mind that Shmuel is the only child we see in that particular work group, and being so small he was probably largely ignored by the guards, who would've taken more sick pleasure in belittling and abusing grown men their size than a little boy.

He was also hidden behind the pile of rubble for about 90% of the time he was talking to Bruno, and he used the wheelbarrow as a cover for why he spent so much time out in the far corner of the camp. I expect he was supposed to be moving rubble out from the building of the new hut, and being so little nobody would've expected him to finish that job quickly.

I also assumed from the summoning whistle that that group of prisoners were pretty much left to get on with their tasks until the whistle sounded, as otherwise the guards would've just called them to order. We can tell from the woodland surrounding that part of the fence and the proximity to Bruno's house that their conversations take place in what is right at the edge of the camp, not in the centre of the complex. Less prisoners wandering about there, and therefore less guards.

One could argue that the guards would have seen Bruno, but he was partly camouflaged by the woodland behind him, and small enough to be hidden by the rubble just as Shmuel was.




The mirror... it's broken.
Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

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They probably saw and just didn't care. You have to keep in mind that the guards saw the prisoners as animals more than humans, so to them a child was less than nothing. They would have more regard and compassion for a sick or hurt puppy.

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They were hidden behind a pile of debris. Why there was debris so close to the perimeter of the fence, I don't know. BUT it did create a little blind spot where two small boys sitting and talking to one another wouldn't be easily noticed.


Not realistic but it served it's purpose in the grand scheme of the story.

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Like someone said, they probably saw but didn't care... Becuase eventually, they KNEW that he was eventually going be killed one way or another. If not by the gas chambers, it could've been starvation, diseases, dehydration, etc.

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