Movie Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I like to watch movies, but my preference goes to movies with lots of action and suspense till the end.
However, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, was one of those films which by its emotional and dramatic charge I have never forgotten.
I think all of you have seen this film released in 2009 by Mark Herman and whose main characters are Asa Butterfield (Bruno), Jack Scanlon (Shmuel), Vera Farmiga (Mother), David Thewlis (Father); its soundtrack was James Horner's.
 I will not tell you the whole story of the movie that happened during the Holocaust period, at a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. I just want to remember the empathy created between those two innocent children, who lived in different realities. Bruno, nine years old, the son of a German military officer and Shmuel is the same age, but is a Jew and is in a Nazi concentration camp, where there are many Jewish people persecuted by Nazi Germany, all sentenced to death.
Oblivious of the political issues, racism and cruelties that were happening in the world, these two children struck an unlikely friendship.
Because of this friendship between them, hiding the differences that existed, they became inseparable every passing day. At the end, Bruno entered the camp and accompanied Shmuel on an innocent walk to the gas chamber, where all died.
It was a tragic end and I did not expect it... I was disappointed and sad.
Unfortunately there were some other similar stories in a very dark period in the history of mankind - hopefully never again!!!

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, by Joana

In the aftermath of WW2, heroic acts of bravery have been celebrated in the media - who hasn't heard of Irena Sendler, the Polish nurse who saved over 2500 children from the Holocaust? Who hasn't heard about and read Anne Frank's Diary and doesn't remember Miep Gies, the Dutch lady who hid Anne Frank and her family? Or who hasn't seen the movie and inspiring true story of "Schindler's List"? 

Well, it's about time we celebrated the best of Humankind, this time with a national hero even if only posthumously.

The (hi)story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, also known as “The Disobedient Consul”, has already been documented in a movie appropriately called “Disobedience”, in a book (http://sousamendesfoundation.org/books/), and now, our school also honours The Righteous Portuguese with an online publication we can all be proud of.

After last January’s commemoration of the 70 years of liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, the class was invited to take part in a flipped activity that included the viewing of an excerpt of the movie “The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas”, reflected on the atrocities committed during WWII and one the students, Joana Cruz, was challenged to research and write a text on Aristides de Sousa Mendes – the Consul of Bordeaux who, just like other Lifesavers, for so long deserved  recognition for his altruistic deed, for a place in History after having saved over 30,000 people and being severely punished by António de Oliveira Salazar.

Challenge accepted, the text was finally submitted, is now published in http://myhero.com/ and can be viewed and read at the following URL:

http://www.myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=A_Sousa_Mendes_3ma_PT_2015

 Thank you!