Movie · 1990 · History, Drama, War · 1h 52m · R · German
Curator score: 7.4/10 (32.9K ratings)
A True Story
Overview
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.4/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.81/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 75
TMDB: 7.2/10
Director
Agnieszka Holland
Production
Telmar Film International, Zespół Filmowy "Perspektywa", Les Films du Losange, CCC Filmkunst
Cast
Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider, Piotr Kozłowski, Klaus Abramowsky, Michèle Gleizer, Ashley Wanninger, Marta Sandrowicz, Nathalie Schmidt, Delphine Forest, Andrzej Mastalerz, Włodzimierz Press, Martin Maria Blau, Klaus Kowatsch, Holger Kunkel, Bernhard Howe, André Wilms, Hanns Zischler, Anna Seniuk, Jörg Schnass
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A singular Holocaust survival story that mixes tension, irony, and darkly comic absurdity without losing sight of the terror underneath. Its central performance and true-story premise make it stand out from more conventional WWII dramas.
Best for
viewers interested in Holocaust survival stories with an unusual angle
fans of true-story wartime dramas
people who like morally complicated identity narratives
audiences open to bleak material with moments of irony and dark humor
Skip if
you want a straightforward, solemn prestige war drama
you are uncomfortable with sexualized body-horror and humiliation imagery
you prefer historically linear stories with minimal tonal shifts
you want an emotionally easy or uplifting WWII film
Overview
Europa Europa is one of those wartime films that feels almost impossible until you watch it. Based on Solomon Perel’s real experience, it follows a Jewish boy who survives by passing as German, then being absorbed deeper and deeper into the machinery of Nazi ideology. The premise alone creates constant suspense, but the film’s real power is in how it turns survival into a study of luck, performance, and identity under extreme pressure.
Worth noting
Agnieszka Holland handles the material with a sharp eye for irony. The film can be harrowing, but it also has an absurdist edge that keeps it from settling into familiar Holocaust-drama rhythms. That tonal instability is part of the point: the world around Solomon is so grotesque that survival sometimes looks like farce, until it suddenly doesn’t.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the lead performance and the sense of a young person improvising his way through history. It is unsettling, often funny in the darkest possible way, and deeply human. The final encounter with the real Solomon Perel gives the story an added charge that makes the whole film feel even more improbable and more devastating.
Top Letterboxd reviews
EnteredTheVoid (4.5★) · 249 likes
So good they named it twice
pirateneckbeard (4★) · 213 likes
What a unique telling of a tragic fracturing of a family that revolves around the determination and luck of one boy to survive WW2 as a Jew while being in the thick of it on the eastern front. Marco Hofschneider's performance is excellent here as Salomon Perel(Who was a real person and is in the final shot of this film) as he chameleons his way from being a German to a Russian and back again while his innocence being his… more What a unique telling of a tragic fracturing of a family that revolves around the determination and luck of one boy to survive WW2 as a Jew while being in the thick of it on the eastern front. Marco Hofschneider's performance is excellent here as Salomon Perel(Who was a real person and is in the final shot of this film) as he chameleons his way from being a German to a Russian and back again while his innocence being his… more
Alli (4.5★) · 141 likes
Super powerful, but also oddly funny. Based on a true story, Europa Europa shows one Jewish teen’s luck, humor, and resilience in hiding with German soldiers during WWII. A hugely charming and engaging film, I'm really glad that I finally watched it. When you meet the real Solomon Perel at the end of the film? Chills. (read more here)
Paul Elliott (4★) · 115 likes
Europa Europa possesses an extraordinary narrative which is an adaption of Solomon Perel’s 1989 autobiography, who was a German Jewish boy who escaped persecution during the Holocaust by impersonating a Nazi. The direction by Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden) manages to transform an incredible and historical memoir of intolerance into a gripping film complemented with a couple of strikingly absurdist dream segments; one of them encompassing Hitler and Stalin engaging in a waltz! It conserves an ironical tone where the details of the succession of life-threatening situations for Solomon are rendered utterly compelling and makes for an intriguingly personal and nonfictional story.
Lise (3★) · 99 likes
I didn't know that this film was based on a true story. My husband pointed it out as the credits rolled, when he noticed that the older Solomon Perel was being played by the real Solomon Perel.
This information proved to be a bit of a relief, but also raised questions about my reaction. Why should the things that bothered me about the film be forgiven now that I know its origin? I don't like to read anything about a… more