What is the message of the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas?

is a story
of two boys who cross barriers in friendship. The fence in the story represents the divide
between people that is too often formed. Ultimately, the message of the story is that beneath it
all, we are all the same. Regardless of our color, religious preferences, sexual preferences, or
gender, we are all the same and should be judged the same. 

In the book, the
author makes the reader aware of the fences, or divides, that exist in our world by telling us
the story of Auschwitz and how the Jews were treated.  These "fences often contribute to
hatred, violence, and even killings.  By telling the story of Bruno and Shumels friendship, the
author encourages its readers to see others through the eyes of a child, because children are
innocent and unaware of racism, sexism, and other biases that separate people from one
another.

The author made Bruno and Shmuel very similarthey are both nine
years old, and are both brought to a place against their will. Yet they are so different because
Shumel is a Jew who is treated inhumanely by the Germans, and Bruno lives a life of luxury. Yet,
throughout their friendship, neither of them feels that they are different from one another.
When Bruno puts on the striped pajamas, Shmuel recognizes that If it wasnt for the fact that
Bruno was nowhere near as skinny as the boys on his side of the fence, and not quite so pale
either, it would have been difficult to tell them apart. It was almost (Shmuel thought) as if
they were all exactly the same really." This is the pivotal moment in which Shmuel and the
readers realize that we are all the same.

The only thing that makes us
different is whats on the outside. Bruno recognizes what his grandmother had once told him:
You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person youre pretending to be, she always told
me. I suppose thats what Im doing, isnt it? Pretending to be a person from the other side of the
fence." In wearing the striped pajamas, Bruno has shown his father that his child and the
children behind the fence are no different from one another. Bruno has shown us that despite our
ability to compare ourselves to others, we are no different from one
another.