The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas — Characters & Cast

To escape boredom and loneliness, to be an explorer like the adventurers in his books, and — after betraying his only friend — to make it right.

Begins as a boy playing at war in Berlin streets, treating uniforms as glamour and adventure as his birthright. Uprooted and isolated, he redirects his explorer's instinct toward the forbidden edge of the garden and finds a friend. His arc runs from curiosity to a first taste of moral failure — his denial of Shmuel under an adult's gaze — and then to an act of loyalty intended as atonement, which carries him past every boundary the adults erected.

To keep her family intact and morally clean — and, once that becomes impossible, to get her children out of the shadow of what her husband does.

Starts as a proud officer's wife who believes her husband's work is honourable soldiering. Her comprehension arrives in stages — an overheard remark, a smell, a confrontation — and collapses into grief, rage and a demand that the children be sent away. She becomes the film's moral barometer, but her awakening comes too late to protect anything. Farmiga's performance won her the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress in 2008.

Duty, career and a genuine belief that he is serving his country and securing a better world for his children.

Introduced as an affectionate father celebrating a promotion, he is progressively revealed as the administrator of the camp behind the house. He never converts or repents; instead the film strips away his compartments one by one — his wife's respect, his mother's disgust, his son's trust — until the two halves of his life meet in a single unbearable moment.

Survival, the hope of finding his father, and the small human relief of a friend on the other side.

Introduced sitting alone at the fence, he is Bruno's exact contemporary and exact opposite in fortune. He gains a friend, is beaten after Bruno's denial, and — with far more reason than Bruno — chooses to forgive him. His search for his missing father becomes the errand that draws Bruno through the wire.

To be taken seriously as an adult and to win the approval of the men and ideas around her.

A twelve-year-old who arrives with a collection of dolls and leaves them behind for propaganda posters and slogans. Encouraged by the tutor and infatuated with Lieutenant Kotler, she becomes a fluent parrot of racial doctrine, demonstrating how quickly indoctrination takes when a child wants to be seen as grown up.