It’s a somewhat docile title for a film about the Holocaust, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tells the story of eight year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) the sheltered son of a Nazi officer (David Thewlis) whose promotion takes the family from their comfortable home in Berlin to a desolate area where the lonely boy finds nothing to do and no one to play with. Crushed by boredom and compelled by curiosity, Bruno ignores his mother’s (Vera Farmiga) repeated instruction not to explore the back garden and heads for the ‘farm’ he has seen in the near distance. There he meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy his own age who lives a parallel, alien existence on the other side of the barbed wire fence. Bruno’s encounter with the boy in the striped pajamas leads him from innocence to a dawning awareness of the adult world around them as his meetings with Shmuel develop into a friendship with devastating consequences.

The film is adapted from Irish writer John Boyne’s award-winning children’s novel of the same name. “It goes without saying that a work of fiction set in the time and place of the holocaust is contentious and any writers who tackle such stories had better be sure of their intentions before they begin,” says Boyne. “This is perhaps particularly important in the case of a book written for children. For me, a 34-year-old Irish writer, it seemed that the only respectful way to approach the subject was through innocence, with a fable told from the point of view of a rather naïve child who couldn’t possibly understand the horrors of what he was caught up in. I believe that this naivete is as close as someone of my generation can get to the dreadfulness of that period.”

Writer director Mark Harman (Brassed Off, Little Voice, Hope Springs) was not unaware of the difficulty of the project when he took it on. “When I read the book, I could immediately imagine a film,” he says. “But I could also imagine a film that was going to be very difficult to get off the ground because of the extremely sensitive nature of the subject.”

A holocaust tale for children? The film’s producer, David Heyman, who is also behind the Harry Potter franchise (as well as I Am Legend and the upcoming Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man), explains, “I believe that the enormity of the Holocaust – the scale of the barbarity, the number of the dead and displaced and exponentially, of the lives destroyed – makes it impossible to get the measure of because the figures are frankly inconceivable. If you are trying to introduce a child to that not-so-distant period in time, those numbers are extremely distancing. I think John Boyne found an exceptionally emotive and effective way to address that by focusing his story on two boys and one family.”

Heyman continues: “I’m drawn to human stories and this is first and foremost a human tale. Whilst it is a Holocaust story set in 1940s Germany, for me, it's timeless. With all the conflicts going on today, whether in Rwanda, Somalia, Palestine, Israel, Darfur, Zimbabwe or Iraq, this story seems to me to be as relevant today as iat any time in history. It’s one that resonates with me and has touched thousands of readers around the world. That children have the potential and the ability to overcome differences in culture and identity; that people ultimately can get along if they’re not encouraged to hate; that governments, institutions and the media can and do cultivate conflict and distrust – these are timely ideas with universal relevance and I think this story makes them accessible to anyone.”

But will this movie be accessible to anyone, especially children? That remains to be seen. While children’s novels are not rated like films, the big screen version of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is rated PG-13. Considering the subject matter, it’s hard to imagine the film being rated any less. Although the number of children who will see it is probably limited, those involved with making the film hope that universal relevance will prevail.