Based on Solomon Perel's autobiography, Europa Europa tells a harrowing tale of survival. Through particular circumstances, a young Jewish boy, Perel, in Nazi Germany, found himself living amongst the very people who were trying to exterminate his entire faith. Even more interesting is that he befriended many of them.

After Perel's sister is killed by a group of Nazis, Perel and his older brother Isaak (played by Marco's real life brother Rene) are sent, by their parents, to travel East in hope of them escaping further persecution. The brothers get separated and Perel finds himself in a Communist school in Russia. He eventually gets captured by some German soldiers. The soldiers are impressed that Perel can speak Russian and German. They keep him around not knowing that he is a Jew.

His secret is discovered by a homosexual Nazi soldier, who tries to feel up Perel when he is in a bath. They become friends and each keep each other's secret. A German officer decides he wants to adopt Perel and sends him to a school in Germany. There, he sings songs about killing Jews and takes a class on how to identify a Jew from an Aryan. He also makes some friends and gets a girlfriend.

Perel fits right in except for his penis. He refuses to have sex with his girlfriend because he dare not let her see that it is circumcised. To get out of a physical he fakes a toothache and ends up getting a perfectly good tooth removed to avoid the doctor. The most cringe inducing scene is when he gets an infection in his penis after he forced skin over the head of his penis and tied it with thread to make it appear un-circumcised.

This is Hofschneider's film debut and he carries it off well. He is in nearly every scene. The most interesting moment is near the end when Perel and some other Hitler Youths are working in a factory and listening to news on how the war is going badly for Germany. Perel, with the other boys, begin singing their national anthem and cry. At first, you would think that he would be happy, but then the psychology is that he has been living as a Nazi for so long that he is mentally and emotionally closer to them, at that point, than he is to his long gone Jewish heritage.

The news has recently been about Shawn Hornbeck, the boy who was abducted by a sick fuck bastard and never escaped for 4 years, even though the opportunities were plentiful. Solomon Perel would no doubt understand completely why Shawn assimilated himself into his forced new life. As Europa Europa demonstrates, survival instincts take over when fear is your foremost emotion.

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