Europe Europe (film)

Europe Europa (original German language Hitlerjunge Salomon , ” Young Hitlerian Salomon”) is a 1990 filmdirected by Agnieszka Holland . It is based on the autobiography of 1989 of Solomon Perel a Jew who escaped the extermination Nazi impersonating ary . ¹ In the film they appear Marco Hofschneider , Julie Delpy and the own Perel. ² This is an international French - German - Polish co-production.

It should not be confused with the film of 1991 of Lars von Trier Europe , launched in the United States with the name Zentropa to avoid such confusion.

Plot

Solek (pseudonym of Solomon “Solly” Perel ) is a young Jew who lives with his family in Nazi Germany . The night of his Bar Mitzvah explodes the Night of Broken Glass . Her sister is killed and Solek, her parents and her two brothers flee to Lodz ( Poland ), thinking that they will be safer there. When Germany invades Poland , Solek and his brother are moved to the east, to the area occupied by the Soviet Union . The brothers are separated and Solek ends in a orphanage in Grodno .

Solek lives in the orphanage two years, where she grows and becomes a member of the Komsomol . When the Germans attacked the USSR (” Operation Barbarossa “), evacuate the orphanage and separate Solek from the rest. He is captured by the Germans and manages to convince them that he belongs to the German minority abroad . His knowledge of German and Russian makes him useful as a translator for the army - for example, it helps them identify a prisoner like Yakov Dzhugashvili, son of Stalin . Solek pretends to be a German named Josef “Jupp” Peters and tells everyone that his parents came from Latvia and that he grew up in a German community in Poland. A fellow soldier, a homosexual actor named Robert, discovers the truth but promises not to tell anyone. The two become intimate friends. When Robert and two other friends die on the battlefield , Solek tries to defect and surrender to the Soviets. However, when he is trying to flee, a company of Soviets surrenders to him and hands him his arms, a fact that sets him as a war hero for the Germans. This allows him to leave the front and enter an educational center of the Hitler Youth , after his captain, a Pomeranian nobleman , offers to take him up for adoption.

At school he falls in love with a German girl named Leni, a devout Nazi . Solek is forced to accept that his love has no future, since he is circumcised and having intimate contacts with her would reveal the secret of his identity. After several months without seeing her, one day she decides to visit the girl’s mother, who informs her that Leni is pregnant and intends to “give her son to the Führer.” Solek deduces that the son must be his best friend, Gerd, an Aryan who is also in love with Leni. Leni’s mother realizes that Solek is not who he says he is; Then he collapses and confesses that he is a Jew. Leni never finds out. Solek and Gerd get into a fight.

Later, Solek receives a call to appear in a police station , in order to clarify a problem with his papers. They are all in order except the Certificate of Racial Purity. He says that he is in Grodno and the commander orders him to go immediately to prevent him from falling into Russian hands should the city be taken. When Solek leaves the building, a bomb falls on this one, killing Gerd, that was waiting for him outside.

Near the end of the war, the Hitler Youth are assigned the task of defending Berlin . There, Solek surrenders to the Red Army . His captors refuse to believe that he is not German and Solek is about to be shot by a communist political prisoner . Solek’s brother, Isaak, just released from a concentration camp , identifies Solek and saves him from dying shot by the Russians. At the end of the film, Solek is released and emigrated to British Mandate of Palestine (future State of Israel ), which embraces the faith of their ancestors.

Acknowledgments

The film won the Golden Globe for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category . ³

Cast

References