striped pajamas

my mother stumbled upon this jewel:

click here or here for a description of the movie, and here for the actual movie website.

in my opinion, this film is the most beautifully, masterfully, and exquisitely produced movie i have ever seen in my entire life.

never before have I seen something that taught so brilliantly such an important lesson.

starting about when i was ten or eleven years old, i read anything and everything i could get my hands on, when it concerned three subjects:
1) world war II and the holocaust
2) the titanic
3) anastasia romanov
i don't know if the fact that i was so enthralled in three tragic events of history reveals something about me or not, but i was absolutely hooked. thankfully, my mother is a connoisseur of children's literature and a professor. there was never a shortage of reading material in our home. of the three subjects listed above, the one that provided the most literature was the holocaust.

i am a firm believer that the memory of such a tragic event in history must be kept alive. it is imperative to the future that we learn from the past.

the boy in the striped pyjamas makes the holocaust more comprehensible to young minds. this is a movie that needs to be seen - at least once - by everyone. seeing from a child's eyes brings clarity to a cloudy world. as the quote from the movie's opening credits says:

"childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows."

-- john betjeman