This movie, while well done, is staggeringly inept in its depiction of the Holocaust. I kept thinking, "How do this German boy and this Polish boy understand each other? How can Schmuel just sit by the fence and never get noticed by the guards? Where are the guards, anyway? If it's so easy to dig under the fence, how come none of the prisoners have done it?" The movie is based on the book, which is fiction. Hoping everyone understands that...?! but from some of the critical responses I've read online, it seems a lot of people think this is a true story. It's not. Read By Chance Alone, by Max Eisen, for a true story about Auschwitz.

Somehow humanity can be lost even in the civilization if there is no examination of conscience. The end of the movie was quite shocking. Treat others as thy want to be treated.

Shows how propaganda and how you do or don't explain things can have grave consequences

A very powerful movie of the evils of fascism and the Nazis victimizing millions of fellow humans. A MUST SEE even for pre-teenagers so no one ever forgets.

So powerful and heart wrenching! Bravo to the acting in this movie.
This rates 5 stars.

The film opens with the quote "Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows", by John Betjeman. A young boy named Bruno lives with his family in Berlin, in Nazi Germany during World War II. He learns that his father Ralf has been promoted, due to which their family, including Bruno's mother Elsa and sister Gretel, relocate to the "countryside" (occupied Poland). Bruno hates his new home as there is no one to play with and very little to explore. After commenting that he has spotted people working on what he thinks is a farm in the distance (but, unbeknownst to the innocent Bruno, is actually a concentration camp), he is also forbidden from playing in the back garden.
Most German families didn't know for example this young boy.

So much to say but lost for words..............

What a heart wrenching movie! Absolutely every cast member performed impeccably, especially two young boys! Much appreciated we are living in peaceful place !

so sad

This movie entralled me from beginning to end! I felt a connection to each and every character in this movie. Well cast, scripted, acted and filmed. The acting by the two boys is at a caliber beyond their years. The editing was excellent... never did I feel it was dragging. All of this make the story heart warming & wrenching!