Based on: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Summary: Bruno's dad feels guilty because he feels like he played a big role in his son's disappearing act, having forced his family to stay with him in Auschwitz. After his wife and Gretel leave he revisits the place that Bruno's clothes were found. To his dismay he finds out that he had more to do with his son's leave than he thought.

UPDATE: March 22, 2012
The lovely Missy the Least pointed out an anachronism. It had to do with American names being used in a very Germanic setting. Go thank her for letting me know!

Bruno's Dad's PoV

My Fault

After the soldier finds Bruno's clothes…

They were his clothes. I knew that, I was certain of it. I would be able to recognize them anywhere by now, having given a description of a little boy, my little boy, in those very same boots, and the same shirt and pants and raincoat to countless people. Every new person I'd met and every stranger that walked by me on the street I had asked. Have you seen my little boy?

A year later, after Mother and Gretel had left…

After that year, that dreadful, horrid year, of waiting –always waiting- for news, I went back. To that spot. Exactly an hour and ten minutes away, if you walked briskly and didn't stray from the fence. It was easy to spot now because one of the soldiers –Henrich? Hans? - had hung a piece of red lace from the barbed wires where he had found the clothes.

I had given up hope by now, not even recognizing the man that looked back at me in the mirror. The sunken eyes, the gray hair, the faded uniform… That was not me. I was Herr Kommandant, not this sorry-looking man.

I sat down next to the fence, like so many countless times before and, like so many times before, ran my hands carefully along the jagged edges of the metal.

I must have been more absentminded than I had thought because the sleeve of my uniform caught on the fence. Annoyed at myself for making another hole in my ragged uniform I roughly pulled up my arm to free myself from the barbs. But then the barbs came up with me.

Astonished I pulled even harder until my sleeve was let go and bent down to look at the bottom of the fence. How had I not noticed before then? The bottom of this section was not anchored into the ground. I grasped the cruel metal and lifted it up, creating a gap beneath the wires and the dirt beneath them.

My mind started churning, and I felt like I might throw up as I finally put two and two together to get four. The gap wasn't big enough for a man to fit through but a small boy, my small, little boy, might be able to.

I felt my blood run cold as I started counting up from four by twos; once, twice, thrice, until I got to ten.

Once…

On the same day that Bruno had gone missing there had been a report of a missing prisoner's uniform. Insignificant on its own, especially since it coincided with a missing person's report, but the memory came up now. It was the only time that a uniform had been stolen on the same day as a gassing, and the memory of waving the officer away who told me assaulted my mind.

Twice…

I also remembered Lt. Kotler coming to me one day with news that Bruno had been talking to that one Jew, –What was his name? Samuel? Shimmul? - and that the Jew had said that Bruno was his friend. It was a totally laughable idea at the time, but what if the Jew hadn't been lying? What if they had been friends?

Thrice…

Bruno had always gone for long walks during the afternoon. Totally normal, of course, because there really was nothing better to do for a boy his age. –Why had I ever made them come with me? - But what if he had disobeyed the rules, and ventured into Out Of Bounds At All Times With No Exceptions? What if he'd come along another boy his age sitting on the other side of the physical boundary, separating our two races? He would have wanted to go to the other side, to see what it was like. He had always been curious and asking questions about it. Why had I just never told him the truth?

As I sat there on the ground in shock, facing facts that had always been there, that I'd just refused to see, to look at, and to analyze, I knew the truth. It was my fault. I was responsible for gassing my own son. As Herr Kommandant I, and I alone, had pressed the button and murdered my little boy.