Prejudice and Bias

Throughout John Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, there was a lot of evidence of prejudice and bias. Bruno's father was in charge of one of the concentration camps and he was clearly a big supporter of the Nazis. Bruno didn't understand much of what was going on and he just listened to his father and agreed that the Jews were horrible people. When he went exploring, he met Shmuel and talked to him through the fence. He didn't understand why the Jews were horrible people. Bruno asked his sister, Gretel, if there were such things as nice Jews. Gretel thought that was a very stupid thought and told Bruno that there was no such thing as nice Jews. She learned from her father and the tutor that they have. This suggests that prejudice is caused by what our parents think.

Prejudice is caused mainly because of what our parents think and what their opinions are. Children are very much influenced by their parents and parents teach their children so whatever the parents think, the children would most likely agree. Also, Bruno being a German family, many, not all, Germans were siding the Nazis and they encouraged what they were doing.

Prejudice is also highly affected by what people around you think, like peer pressure. If a group of people think something, another person is most likely going to agree. Another reason people would be prejudice is because they have a leader. Hitler didn't like the Jews and many people followed his lead, hence the amount of people against Jews.

Bruno and Gretel were influenced by their father and they believed that Jews were horrible people. Bruno was the only one who actually interacted with a Jew for a longer time period and he knows that Jews aren't actually bad people. This shows that the opinions of people most likely revolve around someone else's opinion.

Treaty Of Versailles: Fair or Unfair

The Treaty of Versailles was unfair towards the Germans. After the war was over, in 1918, people celebrated their victory, and they left behind the destroyed grounds. The defeated parties were punished and Germany was forced to sign a Peace Treaty, giving the restrictions that you couldn't even imagine.

In January of 1919, David Lloyd George, of Britain, Vittorio Orlando, of Italy, France's Georges Clemenceau and President Woodrow Wilson met for a Peace Conference to decide how to punish Germany for the destruction they caused. They decided on restrictions Germany must follow such as limiting their military forces to 100,000 men and there shall be no air force or submarines.

Although it is reasonable that Germany should be punished for the damage they've done, I feel it's too harsh to make them give up all the land that they had title over. In the end, Germany had to pay for all the damage they've done which added up to about $33 billion. A lot of Germany's land was taken from them and lost their mining lands, making it very difficult for them to pay for the damage they'd caused.