During World War II, if you were living in a German occupied
area life was hard, because the people who lived there had to withstand the
results of war. Many suffered persecution and dehumanization if you were not
what Hitler and the Nazis considered to be the perfect Aryan race, blond hair
with blue eyes. Europa Europa is an
excellent movie about those “racially inferior” people surviving in Nazi
Germany. The movie follows the life of Solly, a Jew living in Germany who was
forcibly relocated to a ghetto in Poland. When Solly encountered the Nazis he
had to hide his religious identity to keep from being killed. While Solly knew
that he had to keep his Judaism a secret, he was also denied one of his most
basic human rights, freedom of religion. As the movie plays out, he learns of
other “inferiors” that are also having to hide their true nature, such as gays
who have to pretend to be heterosexual to stay alive.
“Sink knives into Jewish flesh and bones.” Imagine Solly’s
fear of being discovered at the Hitler Youth School. Even though he could hide
his religion, he could not hide the Jewish tradition of circumcision. When he
is at school, he takes extraordinary measures to hide his circumcision. He
wants to be accepted with the others and has suppresses his religion to do so,
but there is always the deadly risk of being found out, especially when he is
in the midst of the Nazis.
Not long after being sent to the Russian front with his
Hitler Youth classmates, he deserted the Nazis and surrendered to the Russians because
he didn’t want to kill. He is confronted with his decision to hide among the
Nazis who were comparatively well off, as millions of other Jews and “undesirables”
were being tortured, starved, and killed solely because of their religion or
heritage. After the Nazi defeat, he had to hide his collaboration that likely
kept him alive or else his Jewish brethren would likely treat him as the Nazis
treated them during the war. He has to live with his decision and the pain of
knowing he was associated with ruthless murders. It is difficult to say if he
should have embraced his Jewish heritage in the face of the Nazis, it may meant
his early death. There were consequence for every decision he made, but in the
end he forgive himself and lives to carry out Jewish traditions in Isreal.
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