Europa Europa

In 1938, thirteen-year-old Solek is taking a bath on the eve of his bar mitzvah when Kristallnacht occurs. He escapes his house naked and hides in a barrel. At night, he asks an acquaintance to bring him clothes from his house. She refuses but throws him a leather jacket with a swastika armband. He returns home to his family, to find that his sister Berta has been killed by the Nazis. His father decides the Perel family will move to his birthplace of Łódź in central Poland, as he believes it will be safer there.[5]

The Perel family (Solek, his parents, and two brothers David and Isaak) now live in Łódź. Less than a year later, World War II begins with the German Invasion of Poland. David, who was conscripted into the Polish Army, returns home to the family, informing them he deserted and the Polish have been defeated by the Germans. Solek's family decides he and his brother should flee to Eastern Europe. Isaak and Solek head for the eastern border of Poland, only to find that the Soviets have invaded. The brothers are separated and Solek ends up in a Soviet orphanage in Grodno with other Polish refugee children.

Solek lives in the orphanage for two years, where he joins the Komsomol, receives Communist education and learns Russian. He takes a romantic interest in Inna, a young and attractive instructor who defends him when the authorities at school discover Solek's class origin is bourgeois. Zenek, a Polish Catholic boy whose father was captured by the Soviets, antagonizes Solek for being a Jew and accuses him of being a Stalinist. Solek receives a letter from his parents informing him of their imprisonment in the Łódź Ghetto.

Solek is captured by German soldiers during the German invasion of the Soviet Union and finds himself amongst a group of Soviet prisoners. As the German soldiers single out the Jews and commissars for execution, Solek hides his identity papers and tells the Germans he is "Josef Peters", a Volksdeutscher (ethnic German) from a Baltic German family in Latvia. The soldiers deduce that "Josef" was in the orphanage because his parents were killed by the Soviets and promise him vengeance. The unit adopts Solly (whom they nickname "Jupp") as their interpreter due to his fluency in the German and Russian language. Accompanying the unit for several weeks, Solly sees the horrors of war, including murdered civilians, as the Germans seek to crush Soviet resistance.

Solek cannot let anyone see him bathing or urinating, as his circumcised penis would expose him as a Jew. Robert, one of the soldiers, sneaks in on "Jupp" when he finally manages a private bath. Robert reveals he is gay and will not inform on Solek's identity, as both of them have secrets the Nazis would kill them for; the two become friends.

During combat, Robert is killed and Solek, the lone survivor of his unit, attempts to reach the Soviet lines. As he crosses a bridge, the unit charges across behind him and the Soviet troops surrender; "Jupp" is hailed as a hero. The company commander decides that "such a fine young German" should be properly educated. The childless commander tells "Jupp" he plans to formally adopt him and will send him to the elite Hitler Youth Academy in Braunschweig to receive a Nazi education, much to Solek's consternation.

At the school, "Josef Peters" is introduced to the other boys as a heroic combat veteran. Gerd, one of the Academy pupils, is assigned to help "Josef" get acquainted and the two become roommates and friends. Solek tries to disguise his circumcision with string and rubber bands in various painful ways to simulate a foreskin. He evades a medical examination by feigning a toothache and endures a tooth extraction from the dentist without anesthetic.

Leni, a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth) who serves meals at the Academy, becomes infatuated with "Jupp." He returns Leni's affections, but does not consummate their relationship for fear of his "exposure." Leni tries to goad "Jupp" into becoming more intimate and hints she would also happily bear his child, but after she makes a particularly venomous anti-Semitic remark, "Jupp" angrily slaps her. Leni calls him a Schlappschwanz (limp-dick) and the two part ways.

A less serious threat is the visit to the Academy by a Nazi "expert" in "racial science", who claims particular skill in detecting Jews. The Nazi selects "Jupp" as his subject for a demonstration and carefully measures his head and face. He then calculates "Jupp"'s anthropometric indices and pronounces him mixed but of "pure Aryan stock", to Jupp's relieved surprise. Soon after, while working in a factory for the war effort, Jupp and his classmates learn the German 6th Army has been defeated at the Battle of Stalingrad.

During his leave from the Academy, Solek travels to Łódź to find his family; however, the ghetto is sealed off and guarded by the Feldgendarmerie. Solek rides a tram that travels through the ghetto to the other side of town. Through a small gap in the blocked-out windows of the tram, Solek manages to see horrific sights of tortured, starved people. He spots an elderly woman that resembles his mother, but the tram passengers prevent him from calling out to her. On the returning tram ride, he sees another elderly woman being beaten by a German policeman, but is unsure if the woman is his mother.

After several weeks pass without seeing Leni, Solek visits Leni's mother, who does not sympathize with the Nazis. She tells him Leni is pregnant and intends to "give the child to the Führer", in the Lebensborn program. Solek realizes the child's father is his friend and roommate Gerd. When Leni's mother presses Josef on his identity, he breaks down and confesses he is Jewish; she tells him she had suspected but promises not to betray him. He does not see Leni again.

Solek is summoned to the Gestapo offices and is nearly exposed when he is prodded about his supposed parentage and is asked to show a Certificate of Racial Purity. When Solek claims the certificate is back in Grodno, the Gestapo official says he will send for it and then rants about how the war will be won by Hitler's Wunderwaffen (wonder weapons). As Solek leaves to meet with Gerd, the building is destroyed by Allied bombs; Solek's relief is tempered by Gerd's death in the bombing.

As Soviet troops close in on Berlin, the Hitler Youth at the school are sent to the front. Solek deserts his unit, whereupon his former squadmates try to fire at him. Solek manages to make it safely to the Soviets to surrender. His captors are initially doubtful Solek is a Jew and accuse him of being a traitor. When a Soviet officer angrily shows Solek photos of murdered Jews from death camps they had liberated, Solek explains he was not aware of the extent of the death camps. They are about to have Solek shot by an elderly Communist political prisoner (wearing a red triangle on his camp uniform) when Solek's brother Isaak, just released from a concentration camp, recognizes Solek. Isaak reveals to Solek that their parents were killed when the Łódź Ghetto was "liquidated". Before leaving the camp, Isaak tells Solek to never reveal his story to anyone, saying it would never be believed. Shortly thereafter Solek emigrates to the British Mandate of Palestine, the future state of Israel, where he embraces his Jewish heritage. The films ends with the real Solomon Perel, as an older man, singing a Jewish folk song taken from the Book of Psalms ("Hine Ma Tov," Psalm 133:1).

The film was released in the United States on 28 June 1991 and grossed $31,433 in its opening weekend in two theaters. Its final gross in the US was $5,575,738.[4]

Europa Europa received widespread acclaim from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 95% based on 19 reviews.[6] Writing for the Los Angeles Times, critic Michael Wilmington lauded the film's multifaceted structure, calling Europa Europa "a tense suspense story, an ironic romance and a truly black comedy—all driving toward a dark crisis of identity".[7] In a positive review, Janet Maslin of The New York Times said it "accomplishes what every film about the Holocaust seeks to achieve: It brings new immediacy to the outrage by locating specific, wrenching details that transcend cliche".[8]

Hal Hinson of The Washington Post praised the direction, saying "Holland isn't a dour moral instructor; she's an ironist with a deft ability to capture the absurd aspects of her material and keep them in balance with the tragic".[9] Hinson commended the film for its "[awareness] of the toll [Solly's] shape-shifting compromises exacts".[9] Desson Howe, also of The Post, was more critical, citing the film's "emotional distance,"[10] and similarly to Maslin, said the film did not fully probe Solly's conscience.[10]

As it won four major "best foreign-language film” prizes from American critics’ groups of the 1991 awards season, Europa Europa was strongly regarded as a contender for a Best Foreign Film Oscar for the 64th Academy Awards ceremony.[7] However, the German Export Film Union, which oversaw the Oscar selection committee for German films, declined to submit the film for a nomination.[11] The committee reasoned the film did not meet certain eligibility criteria, such as not qualifying as a German film.[7][11] However, the film was a co-production between Germany, Poland, and France,[7] in addition, much of the film is spoken in German, while the film's producer and much of the cast and crew is German.[11] Export committee members reportedly called the film "junk" and "an embarrassment."[11][12] The film's unconventional use of black comedy, as opposed to full tragedy, in a Holocaust film has been speculated to be a main cause for the committee's omission.[13][14][15] The omission prompted leading German filmmakers to write a public letter of support for the film and its director Agnieszka Holland.[16][17] The letter signees included Werner Herzog, Wolfgang Petersen, and Wim Wenders.[7][16]

Despite the film’s omission, it went on to be a critical and commercial success in the United States[7] where it became the second most successful German film after 1981's Das Boot,[16] and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.[18]