Hitler Youth Salomon
Hitler Youth Salomon (international title: Europa Europa ) is a German-Polish-French film directed by Agnieszka Holland from 1990. The film tells the life of the Jews Sally Perel , who as a member of the Hitler Youth , the era of National Socialism survived in Germany. Perel's autobiography , first published in German in 1992 under the title Ich war Hitlerjunge Salomon , served as a template .
action
Salomon - called "Sally" - Perel was born in 1925 as the son of a Jewish shoe seller in Peine . His parents were from Poland. At first he grew up with his siblings Isaak, David and Bertha in good circumstances. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the family fell victim to pogroms and discrimination, so that the parents decided to return to Łódź . But when the German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 , there was no security there either. Sally's parents send the boy and his brother Isaac to Russia and hope that the brothers can be brought to safety there. On the run, however, Sally and Isaak are separated, and Sally ends up in an orphanage in Grodno .
The boy quickly comes to terms with the new situation, learns Russian and spends the days with the other children and young people. He maintains contact with his parents only by letter and over time learns, among other things, that Łódź was renamed “Litzmannstadt” and that a ghetto was established there. The apparent peace ends with the German attack on Russia , and Sally goes on the run again. After a short time, he and another group of refugees are picked up. When the soldiers, during an ID check, realize that he speaks fluent German , he pretends to be an ethnic German and claims his name is Josef Peters . The soldiers then take him in. He quickly became very popular and worked as an interpreter because he was fluent in Russian.
"Jupp", as he is called from now on, is also popular with the officers and a captain finally takes on him in order to adopt the supposedly homeless man. During the subsequent train journey, on which he is accompanied by Rosemarie, a middle-aged National Socialist, the two of them have sexual intercourse. Rosemarie sees the Führer in “Jupp”, but does not notice that he is circumcised. But when the homosexual soldier Robert, with whom Sally became friends and who knows his secret origins, is shot in front of his eyes, he loses his courage: He decides to seek refuge with the Soviet army and contacts them via a field telephone Soldiers up. However, when he crossed a bridge and the soldiers wanted to receive him, the Wehrmacht soldiers of his unit appeared behind him and took the Soviet soldiers prisoner. Sally becomes the hero of the day, because he supposedly stormed the position of the opponent alone and so showed extraordinary courage.
Sally is sent to Braunschweig to attend an Adolf Hitler school (actually the academy for youth leadership ). He continues to play his part and befriends several other boys. He also falls in love with Leni, who is a fanatical supporter of the National Socialist ideology. She is not averse to him, but has no understanding that he does not want to sleep with her (for fear of being exposed as a Jew after his circumcision ).
In the meantime Sally goes to Łódź to look for his family there, but soon returns to Braunschweig without success. Leni, who has meanwhile been impregnated by another Hitler Youth, finally runs away from home in order to fulfill her “duties as a German woman” and to give her child to a Lebensborn home. When Sally wants to visit her again, he starts talking to her mother, who already suspected that he was Jewish. Sally confirms her suspicions and is relieved that he can finally talk to someone about his true identity.
Used in the Volkssturm towards the end of the war , Sally flees during a battle and surrenders to Soviet soldiers. In captivity he meets his brother Isaac again, who is in poor health but alive. Isaac and David are the only surviving relatives of Solomon, as his mother, father and sister Bertha perished in the Holocaust of the Jews.
Production history
The film version of the autobiographical material , produced by Artur Brauner , himself of Jewish descent and Holocaust survivor, was delayed by seven years for financial reasons. The actor René Hofschneider , originally intended for the main role, had become too old for an age-appropriate cast, which is why his brother Marco Hofschneider, nine years younger than him, took over the role in 1989 . Instead, René Hofschneider played the older brother of the Hitler Youth Salomon, Isaak Perel.
Reviews and reception
The film was received differently in Germany, while it received mostly positive reviews in other western countries. The tenor of the German criticism was that a very interesting material and a successful adaptation of the script had been poorly implemented in terms of staging and acting. The editors of the Lexicon of International Films judged, for example: “In terms of staging and acting, film adaptation of authentic experiences that only deserves interest because of its topic.” In some cases, however, the entire concept was panned out. The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that the film does not tell a tragedy, but rather mixes "comics and agitation to agitpop." Based on a total of 21 reviews by professional English-speaking film critics, Hitlerjunge Salomon in the Rotten Tomatoes Internet film criticism database has 100 percent positive reviews today (as of 2011) , several of which attribute the poor performance of the film, especially in the German criticism, to the unpleasant ("inconvenient") theme of a boy of Jewish origin posing as an ethnic German.
The fact that the German Oscar Commission refused to nominate the film for the shortlist in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category caused an international scandal , even though it was considered a favorite due to its popularity in the USA and at the latest after winning the Golden Globe . The producer Brauner and the Polish director Holland then publicly complained about a “German arrogance towards Jewish issues” and a latent xenophobia; the international press reported this largely as anti-Semitism charges. One of the leading American film critics, Roger Ebert , described the 1992 Oscar nomination in the category “Best Adapted Screenplay” as a “rebuke” by the American Oscar jury to the German Academy Committee, which did not make the film an Oscar nomination for the best foreign language film admitted.
Awards and nominations
The film received the National Board of Review Award in 1991 and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992 . Also in 1992 he was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Adapted Screenplay . In addition, the film received various important criticism awards, especially in the USA, including the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Boston Film Critics Society award .
literature
- Sally Perel : I was the Hitler Youth Salomon (original title: קוראים לי שלמה פרל Kor'im li Schlomo Perel ). German by Brigitta Restorff (revision of the text created with the author). 4th edition. Nicolai, Berlin 2002, 196 pages, ISBN 3-87584-424-6 .
- Paperback edition: München, Heyne 1992/2005 , ISBN 3-453-08464-0 ( Europa Europa is given as the original title , as the film was also called in the USA ).
Web links
- Hitler Youth Salomon in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Hitler Youth Salomon at Filmportal.de
- Film reviews about Europa Europa (English title) on Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ I was the Hitler Youth Salomon . 1992 edition in the DNB catalog.
- ↑ Film-earch.de: Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0389424/bio . As of June 12, 2008.
- ↑ Embarrassment with consequences , Spiegel, January 27, 1992.
- ↑ Ebert, Roger (1993): A 'Silence' sweep? , March 15, 1992.
