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What is the setting of the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas?

The story takes place during WWII at the Auschwitz concentration camp which was located in Southern Poland, thirty-seven miles West of Krakow. "Out-With," as Bruno refers to it, was opened in May of 1940 and was both a concentration and extermination camp where Jews, Gypsies, German political prisoners, POWs, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses were imprisoned as part of Hitler's "Final Solution." Throughout the novel, Bruno's father is the Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp who is in charge of the systematic extermination of Jewish prisoners. The setting of the novel is around 1943 and follows the nine-year-old protagonist's experience at his new home at "Out-With." Following Bruno's unfortunate death, the Commandant loses his mind and is relieved of his position. Historically, Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945 by Soviet troops, forcing the Nazi SS officers and 60,000 prisoners to evacuate the camp. 

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