Skip to main content

What was the change that took place in Shmuel's life after he came to Auschwitz in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne?

The answer to this question is quite a sad one.  Shmuel's life completely changes when he enters the Auschwitz concentration camp.  Shmuel is promised a life of family, friends and fun.  Shmuel thinks he is going to be able to play many games of soccer and other feats of athletics with his own Jewish friends.  Instead, what Shmuel finds is a grim concentration camp where he is forced to wear "striped pajamas," is given shelter in inadequate huts, is not given enough food to survive, is separated from his family, observes people disappearing due to their deaths in the gas chambers, is not given the opportunity for personal hygiene, and is even prevented from wearing shoes.  Shmuel's German friend, Bruno, is disgusted by these conditions and tries to combat them first from the "other side of the fence," and later by entering the fence himself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more