Boy in the Striped PJ's Chapter 7 Questions

1. How is the mother's defence of Herr Roller entirely ironic? It is entirely ironic because his mother is saying to Bruno that he should not laugh or be mean to Herr Roller because he got hurt in the war but there are thousands or Jews being killed and they do care or do nothing about it.
2. What role does Kotler represent historically in the novel? (think beyond being a soldier) He represents the 'perfect race' depicted by Hitler with the blonder hair and blue eyes and all the Germans who believe that Hitler was the greatest and that the Jews were filthy and non-human.
3. What character is Kotler juxtaposed with in this chapter? What effect does it have on understanding each of these characters? Kotler is juxtaposed with Pavel as Kotler is a Nazi soldier and Pavel is a Jew. This helps us understand the way the Nazis talked to the Jews especially the ones that are being used as slaves for the Nazi families. This also helps us to understand how the Kotler reacts when a Jew is present compared to when Gretel and Bruno are around.
4. How would you compare the interaction Bruno has with Pavel to all the other interactions Bruno has had with adults? The interaction that Bruno has with Pavel compared to all the other interactions is that he seems to understand Pavel better than anyone else. Brunos seems to look at listen to Pavel a lot more intently than he does with anyone else such as his mother or father and he feels warm and safe when Pavel is around compared to when he is with Gretel, Kotler or his father.
5. Why is juxtaposition a key technique employed in Holocaust texts? How has it been used in The Boy in the Striped PJ's? Juxtaposition is a key technique which is employed in Holocaust texts because it shows how completely different the Germans/Nazis are in the way that they think, what they believe and the way they treat people different to themselves compared to the Jewish people. This has been used in the Boy in the Striped PJ's many times to help show how a innocent German (Bruno) looks at the way the Nazis feel about the Jews and the way they treat people. E.g. When Bruno and his family were boarding the train to Auschwitz and they were going on a nice, comfortable and empty train because they were German and their father was a Nazi soldier and next to them was a train heading in the same direction which was cramped with Jews who were being put on trains like cattle being led to their deaths and the innocent Bruno thought it would be a good thing to do to notify those people that their was space on their train but shook away the thought as he believed his mother and Gretel would become very angry.