The Damned

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The Damned (1969), directed by Luchino Visconti, offers us a sort of A Clockwork Orange situation. Visconti sets the story at the time of the rise of Nazism in Germany. He reveals the amoral actions of a corrupt capitalist family which commits murder, child molestation, and rape. When this type of extreme behavior occurs, it invites fascism. Freedom allows for horrendous behavior to take place. If society opts for totalitarian control, there may be order but at the cost of what makes us human, including our emotions and morality.

The film opens with a shot of the steel mill owned by the Essenbecks, a wealthy family that has endured WWI and the following years of economic depression. The steam and fire remind one of the infernal depictions of Hell.

In contrast to the arduous labor of the mill’s workers, there is the lavish setting of the birthday celebration dinner for the company’s leader, Joachim (Albrecht Schoenhals). Herbert (Umberto Orsini), an anti-Nazi, comments that the more they feed the family members, “the more ravenous they become.” He suggests that these rich people are greedy and never satisfied.

There is a shot of Konstantin (Reinhard Kolldehoff), who is pro Third Reich, looking at himself in the mirror with a picture of Hitler attached to the upper left corner along with a swastika. As I have noted often in this blog, mirrors can reflect the darker, or other side, of an individual’s personality. Visconti continues to use mirrors in the film, implying that many here are among the damned.

Visconti uses zooming in and out closeups which create a feeling of distortion, which reflects the unbalanced world we are viewing. In the car. as Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde) approaches the party, he has a discussion with his friend, Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), which reveals the family’s struggle with disliking Hitler, who is Chancellor at this time, and gaining power, and the desire to maintain their business’s superiority. At the estate house, the pictures of Hitler and of the older patriarchs of Germany stress this division. Aschenbach says to Friedrich that there are no moral dictates now in Hitler’s Germany’s, and anything can happen with an elite in control. As we know, that is frightfully true.

The children who perform for their grandfather suggest that Visconti wants to show how these innocents will be corrupted by the adults. We have contrast again when grandnephew Gunther (Renaud Verley) plays a classical piece of music on the cello and then Joachim’s grandson, Martin (Helmut Berger), performs, in Marlene Dietrich drag, a sing that yearns, ironically, for “a real man” in the traditional sense. Even without the costume, Martin wears thin, raised eyebrows that give him a demonic mask-like look. His outsider appearance does not celebrate crossdressing but instead hides a dark pathology.

A terrorist attack, supposedly by Communists, is reported in the middle of Martin’s performance. Herbert thinks Hitler’s minions set the fire to stoke the feeling that outsiders are attacking German nationalism, which will empower Hitler’s agenda. Herbert fears giving power to an authoritarian, like Hitler, while Aschenbach, who is in Hitler’s SS, or Gestapo, loudly stresses the need to quash those who defy those in power. Instead of Herbert, Joachim abandons his ethical stance, business coming first, and makes Konstantin, a SA member, or “brownshirt,” a Hitler goon, his vice-president to prevent Hitler becoming an enemy of the company.

Friedrich is involved with Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), Martin’s mother, and he admits to her in private that Herbert’s conspiracy theory has merit. Friedrich has ambitions to take over the company, and Sophie says she can manipulate Martin to help. The scene is shot in shadows, echoing the devious scheme they are devising, as is much of the film to suggest the darker side of humanity.

Aschenbach, who is like Iago, manipulating people, says to Friedrich and Sophie that soon all The Reich’s enemies will be reduced “to ashes.” Again, there is the reference to fire, and his words may not only refer to infernal flames but are also a foreshadowing of the ovens at the concentration camps. They plan on murdering the anti-Nazi Joachim with Herbert’s gun. Aschenbach says that any trial of Herbert can be dispensed with, since it would just be a formality. When the lawless are in control, there is no protection by the rule of law. (Aschenbach has a beguiling smile, which reminds one of the line from Hamlet that states one may smile though he may be a “villain.” It shows how the shiny surface may be used to hide the darkness below).

Herbert tells Gunther, Konstantin’s son, bullied by his father, that, “It's all over, Gunther. It was everyone's fault, even mine. It does no good to raise one's voice when it's too late, not even to save your soul. The fear of a proletariat revolution, which would've thrown the entire country to the left... was too great, and now we can't defend it any longer! Nazism, Gunther, is our creation. It was born in our factories, nourished with our money!” Herbert is willing to take the blame for a growing proletariat sentiment that has created the reactionary Nazism. He is admitting that the exploitative capitalists started the problems that Germany now faces. He is contemplating fleeing the country, as so many others did. He escapes as the SS come to arrest him for the murder.

Since Martin has the majority of stock holdings, he, under the influence of his mother, appoints Friedrich in charge of the company, outraging Konstantin. Aschenbach wants to make sure the armaments that the steel factory manufactures do not go to the SA since Hiter now wants his personal SS to replace the brownshirts. He uses his influence on the promoted Friedrich to reach this goal. Amid all the turmoil these people are like the gangsters in The Godfather, where business outweighs all other human concerns.

We hear on the radio how the leaders stoke the nationalistic fervor of the citizens. Books by such writers as Helen Keller and Marcel Proust are burned, suppressing any ideas that may question the words of the authoritarian regime.

Martin’s evil nature appears as he plays with the young family girls. We later learn that he most likely molested his young nieces. When he visits the apartment of his girlfriend, Lisa Keller, he ogles the young girl next door as she skips in the street. He gives her a gift when he returns, attempting to groom her. The child realizes it is not appropriate as Martin strokes her arm and puts his head in her lap. She moves away. But Martin persists, later giving her a necklace. She kisses him, probably because her scolding mother has not shown her love. But the guilt she feels after submitting to Martin is so severe that she hangs herself. She is Jewish, so this exploitation of a Jew by a German is symbolic of the Holocaust to come. Martin’s character shows how the worst of humanity rises out of the depths of society as unscrupulous rulers give them free reign.

Intimidation by the powerful causes the college administration to reprimand Gunther because of his communication with the wanted Herbert. The university dean is afraid that the college will be dragged into the persecution that is building in the country.

A chilling scene occurs when Aschenbach shows Sophie the Gestapo's huge room filled with files on German citizens. He says, "These are the most complete archives ever conceived... You see it's not very difficult to enter the lives of people. Every citizen today is potentially one of our informers." The film is saying that when a government dismisses the rights and privacy of citizens, it can gather all the information that exists about people and weaponize it to weed out opponents. Aschenbach said earlier that if a flower, a thing of beauty, was in the way of machinery plowing a field, it must be destroyed. He sees getting rid of people the same way.

Martin is a person of interest in the hanging of the little girl. He hides out in an attic of the family estate. His placement in this Gothic hideaway implies that he is a monster not fit to be part of society.

The local SA has a celebration at a hotel and members voice dissatisfaction with Hitler, probably realizing that their usefulness has been replaced by the Gestapo. They drink and confess their feelings of alienation and loneliness. They eventually have sex with each other. The outward regimentation that was hiding their true selves is literally and figuratively stripped away. It is ironic that they sing extremist songs that demonize “the other” when they, in fact, fit that category. For political reasons and implicitly for their unapproved behavior as dictated by the state, the Gestapo massacres them. Aschenbach makes sure that Friedrich personally kills Konstantin, making the new president of the company pay the price for his business deal with the Third Reich. Visconti, who was gay, depicts those who demonize homosexuality on the surface, and shows victimization of those who hide their sexual preference behind the dictates of society.

Aschenbach uses his knowledge of Martin’s involvement in the death of the girl to recruit him to take down Friedrich because he is becoming independent. As Aschenbach says, he is “beginning to think for himself.” That attitude is not allowed in a totalitarian state. Martin would be next in line to run the company if both Friedrich and Sophie were eliminated. Martin says he “could do anything” with “power.” It is frightening that a psychopath would receive a license to indulge his demented desires.

Friedrich, with the help of Sophie, has attained the position of Baron and so he is her equal and can marry her. At another family dinner Friedrich acts like a dictator himself (once authoritarianism is unleased, it is contagious), ordering those in attendance around. Surprisingly, the exiled Herbert arrives, saying that instead of helping his wife and children escape, Sophie gave them to the authorities, and they went to the concentration camp at Dachau. He knows his gun was used in the murder, but it is obvious he knows that it was Friedrich who committed the crime. His wife perished, and Herbert wants to make a deal, confessing to killing Joachim if they will release his children. Such are the demonic deals made in such an immoral environment.

Martin now carries out Aschenbach’s plan, exposing Friedrich as the killer and his mother as the accomplice. The Gestapo official sees the psychopathic Martin as a good protégé for the Nazi cause, a telling turn that shows where evil gets its army. Martin sits by himself at the head of the empty family table, banging his hand on it, showing his lust for power.

Martin tells his mother that she took everything from him, all power and wealth, and possibly allowing for his proclivities to flourish. He undresses and rips her clothes off. She screams but becomes passive in the sexual assault that Martin executes as retribution. Afterwards she looks at mementos of his childhood, which show an ironic contrast between the innocence of youth and the corruption that followed. Sophie lapses into an almost catatonic state, holding a lock of Martin’s hair she kept when he was young as she reclines on her bed with his drawings as a child, as opposed to him as an adult, at her side. It’s as if that is the way she wants to remember her son, wiping away in her mind what he has become. She is now incapable of helping Friedrich with his defense.

Martin, once just a lone wolf, is now in full Gestapo uniform, showing how the Nazis give official sanction for madness to rule as the state and the psychopath become one. Martin arranges an absurd Nazi wedding, with a huge swastika on display, where Sophie must declare herself belonging to the Aryian race and not subject to any hereditary diseases, which of course, might poison the pure blood of the ruling class. Sophie is so pale she looks already like the ghost she will become. The ceremony is empty of the fervor and passion of the SA gay party. It stands in contrast to that erotic gathering as the Nazis drain all humanity out of lovemaking. Sofie’s wears a fur which depicts two animals kissing, but they are dead. The totalitarian world drains individual intimacy out of humanity for the sake of control. Martin echoes that element as he gives vials of poison To Friedrich and his mother so that they can die instead of having a honeymoon. He then inherits everything, and the Reich can have the power of industry to proceed with its dire plans.

Martin blows out candles as if symbolically extinguishing whatever is left of freedom and gives the bodies of Friedrich and Sophie a Nazi salute, showing how their deaths will lead to the new order. The last shot is the same as the first, with the flames of the factory stressing the hell on earth that has come to pass.

Europa Europa

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Director/writer Agnieszka Holland had a similar experience as her main character in Europa Europa (1990). They were both caught between two worlds. Holland is from Poland, and her father was Jewish, but her mother was Catholic. One’s Jewish nature derives from the maternal side, according to Orthodox standards, so she was not officially a Jew by that standard, and the community adhering to that rule did not accept her as one of their own. But, bigotry has no such boundaries, and racists targeted her. The main character in the film, Salomon (Solly) Perel (the story is based on his memoir), played by Marco Hofschneider, is a Jew trying to survive during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

The opening shot, which is probably a dream sequence, shows Solly as a boy, which can represent the innocence of youth. He is under water wearing a military jacket and swastika armband, suggesting the corruption of that youthfulness. He is holding onto an adult soldier at the same time trying to get away from the man, while attempting to get above water. The image summarizes the predicament of hiding one’s identity to survive, and trying to find one’s place of belonging. As Amy Taubin says in her essay, “Border States,” Solly says that he was born in Germany and his parents were Azriel (Klaus Abramowski) and Rebecca (Michele Gleizer). The announcement establishes who Solly is, and his story becomes dealing with the suppression or embracement of that heritage. The title of the film suggests the duality of a world that embodies diversity but also embraces the hate of what is different.

There is a scene showing Solly’s circumcision, which his voice-over says he remembers. Perhaps that memory is so strong that it keeps him grounded as to his Jewish identity. The story jumps forward to Solly’s bar mitzah, when he is considered an adult male in Jewish tradition. It coincides with the Nazi attack on Jewish homes in his town. It is a horrible way to leave behind childhood and be thrust into the horrors of the adult world. We hear The Blue Danube in the background in Solly’s home, a contrast of German beauty with its brutality. Solly is taking a bath when the onslaught occurs, and he is naked as he jumps out of his bathroom window after the glass shatters. He hides in a barrel. Symbolically it looks like he is being reborn into a different life. The only clothes he can get, courtesy of a young girl in the neighborhood, is that jacket with the Nazi armband, which ushers in his new life. When he returns inside his house he sees that his sister has been killed.

The story is a picaresque tale as Solly travels through several places. The family leaves for Poland. He rides a bike and he crashes into a storekeeper holding the shop window. Again, we have glass shards. Solly’s world is shattering, but is he also part of the forces causing that destruction, given his future life? The family lives above a movie theater and the enamored female cashier, Basia (Nathalie Schmidt) lets him in for free. The film may suggest that movies allow one to escape the present madness by going into a world of imagination. Taubin says that Solly’s good looks along with some luck allow him to endure throughout the Holocaust. For example, he was to run the errand that his sister undertook, which led to her death.

Solly’s father sends him and his reel and real brother, Isaak (Rene Hofschneider), away as the Germans invade Poland. Solly narrates that the Poles at the time preferred Hitler to Stalin. A Russian soldier rescues Solly during a river crossing, and Solly is now cut off from his family, and therefore his roots, since he is separated from his brother. Solly winds up in a school for orphaned boys where he says he was turned into a good Russian Communist boy. In a way he reflects the cultures he passes through. Director Holland mentions that he is like Zelig in the Woody Allen film. He receives a letter from his father that says not to forget who he is. And that is his challenge.

The Russians don’t care about his being Jewish, only what social class he is from. Since his father owned a shop, they consider him bourgeoisie, one of the enemies of the workers. Again, a young woman, one of the teachers, defends him. The film shows how Solly will do what it takes to survive, even if it means turning in a fellow Polish student, Zenek (Andrzej MasTalerz), who is anti-Stalin, when the youth attacks him for being Stalin’s “puppet.” He also follows the party line as he gives a speech about religion being “the opiate of the people.” That same Polish student shows his ugliness by being anti-Semitic, and the Communist school official condemns him for his racism. But the attractive schoolteacher then mocks the Polish boy for his Catholic beliefs, showing how his prayers will not bring candy from the sky, but Stalin’s followers can drop candy from the ceiling. The stress here is that materialism eclipses spirituality. There is a picture in the background of Stalin, which makes one recall the large pictures of Hitler (dictators are narcissists who want to be seen as having God-like power). Children are in attendance during this scene. The director implies that all indoctrination is dangerous. Taubin writes that fascism is based upon hating the “other,” while Communism had loftier goals. It is the subversion of those ideals by corrupt leaders that Holland is targeting. The film is not didactic in praising one view. It shows the failings of all humans.

The candy raining from the sky is replaced by the roof collapsing as the Germans attack, deflating the euphoria of the moment and showing how quickly the materialistic world can switch from bounty to deprivation. As the school’s population become refugees and are attacked by planes, Solly runs for cover and the truck carrying other students and the schoolteacher drive away. She throws him an apple, an interesting reversal of the teacher-student relationship.

The occupying Germans capture Solly. He is originally from Germany, so his fluency in the language helps him. There is a shot of Solly looking up at the sun, and there is a suggestion that he gets some divine inspiration. He tells the German soldiers he was in an orphanage school. Taubin says that Solly “intuitively understands that his survival in part depends on his allowing those around him believe anything what suits their fantasies about themselves.” The women he encounters engage in this activity, and no so do the Germans. He says his name is Josef Peters so he will not have a Jewish-sounding name, and his captors assume that the Russians killed his parents. He speaks Russian as well, so he can be useful as a translator, and actually identifies Stalin’s son, which endears him to the Germans. He is like Chance in Being There, where others imprint their beliefs onto him. There is also a bit of Brecht’s Mother Courage here, who adopts whatever country she is in to survive.

Back at the German camp, Solly is offered food. He takes a bite of sausage, but then spits it out. Is he upset that he is not keeping kosher? The Polish student Zanek is a captive there and shouts out in Russian that Solly is a Jew. Solly translates exactly what Zanek says, and a German soldier, not understanding Russian, tells him to confront Zanek, who he slaps him which makes it appear that Solly is offended by being called a Jew. Zanek jumps over the fence separating them and then runs off as soldiers close in on him. A truck then hits Zanek, killing him. Solly faints, as if overwhelmed by the consequences of his action, which means that the preservation of his own life can lead to the death of another. Later the company captain interviews Solly and tells him that the war is not against Russia, England, or France, but is a “holy war” against the Jews. Solly also witnesses the dead body of a young Russian girl who was hanged. Solly says in his voiceover that he was so confused by these German soldiers who treated him well but were capable of such hatred. He wonders if what separates them is a little “foreskin,” which implies that Solly wonders if he, too, could be capable of atrocities. These scenes add to the weight of guilt Solly is carrying because of his trying to keep surviving among haters.

There is a surrealist scene inserted here that shows Stalin and Hitler dancing (representing their prior accord), with candy falling from the ceiling (as happened in the previous scene at the school), and young ballerinas gathering up the sweets. Zanek is there with a large gash in his body. There are then menacing looks exchanged between Stalin and Hitler, possibly suggesting the new animosity between them given the Nazi invasion. Holland does not show that this is a dream sequence, but Zanek’s appearance suggests it is one of Solly’s dreams.

Solly encounters Robert (Andre Wilms), a gay German soldier who was an actor. They bond, sharing their love of literature and film. Solly asks him if it is difficult playing other people, to which Robert says, “Much easier than being yourself.” This simple exchange reveals Solly’s concern over his pretending to be a Nazi. But, Robert’s words stress how difficult it is to be one’s true self (if one can even know what that is), which in both their cases could lead to dire consequences. Solly takes a bath in a barn, which reminds us of the scene at the beginning of the film. He is surprised by Robert who reveals his gay orientation by reaching for Solly’s genitals. Solly jumps out of the tub and Robert sees that Solly is circumcised, and thus, a Jew. (Solly just can’t have a relaxing bath). He promises to keep his secret, since he has one of his own, and sympathizes with Solly being ethnically closeted. It is darkly comic that it is Solly’s penis that keeps forcing him to identify himself as Jewish.

Preparing for Christmas, Solly tells Robert that his sister loved the holidays, while he hated Passover, getting nauseous from eating eggs. When Robert asks if he prays, Solly repeats the line from Marx about religion being the opium for the masses. Is that what he really believes now, or has he adopted what he has been exposed to while denying his past to stay alive? Robert asks if he would be able to play a Jew. Jokingly, Solly says Robert looks too stupid, to which the laughing Robert calls Solly a racist, since Solly comically referenced a Jewish stereotype about all Jews being clever.

In the trenches, Russian enemy fire kills Robert. Solly mourns the loss of all those he cared about and no longer wants to keep playing a phony. He says he wishes to be with his “own kind.” But he can’t seem to escape the charade. On a phone line belonging to the Russians he says he wants to come over to their side since he is a Jew who attended a Russian school. They tell him to approach them holding a rifle. However, the German soldiers arrive in larger numbers and the Russians surrender. The Germans think Solly was attacking the Russians by himself. They praise him, and the captain, who has never had children, wants to adopt him. Again, others project what they want reality to be onto Solly.

The captain sends Solly to go to a Hitler youth school. What follows is another darkly humorous scene. On the train to the school he is in the company of an older German woman. She has a cigarette lighter in the form of a bullet, a scary image subverting a harmless object into a threatening one. After handing identification papers over to a German soldier, they must darken the room most likely to evade being seen and targeted. The woman remarks that Solly has the same birthday as Hitler, and has the same “dark hair.” Again, we have a woman drawn to Solly, and she seduces him, calling out “Mein Fuhrer!” while having sex. The double nature of Solly, of Germany, and maybe humankind is suggested by the comparison.

It is funny to hear Solly introduced as a pure-bred German to the Hitler school students. He must raise his arm in the Nazi salute and swear allegiance to the enemy of all Jews. He observes a student coming out of the shower with his underwear on. Could this fellow also be a Jew is disguise? Solly practices saluting and clicking heels in front of a mirror. As has been often noted on this blog, mirrors can reflect the underside, or doppelgänger, of a person. But then, Solly starts dancing, which undermines his attempt to perform as a programmed puppet of the Third Reich.

The film shows us the craziness of the Hitler school. They are ordered to perform the smallest details, including to use a fork and a knife in the proper hands. They are told to stay healthy, as if that is a command that can be obeyed. The swimming pool has a huge swastika painted on its bottom which shows how Nazism permeates their every moment.

There is a lecture from Goethke (Erich Swartz) about how to recognize a Jew that is so outrageously racist it succeeds in being an effective satiric scene. Besides exaggeratingly describing physical stereotypes, he even believes that “Jewish blood is totally different from ours.” Goethke says that by understanding these racial differences, the students will never be deceived by a Jew pretending he is something he is not. The irony here is that he says these words in the presence of Solly, who is a handsome young Jewish man successfully adopting the Germanic role. He even picks Solly from the class and, after using varying measuring devices, and declares Solly is authentically Aryan. He says, “The Nordic man is the gem of this earth,” whose “body is perfect.” I guess he doesn’t include women. Again, we have some kind of fantasy being projected which is totally not grounded in reality.

Immersed in the Hitler school, Solly waivers in his earlier resolve to be authentic. He sings a song in praise of Germany’s supremacy after learning of a defeat to the Russians. He falls for Leni (Julie Delpy, of the later Richard Linklater “Before …” trilogy). He tries to pull back and secure his foreskin (and thus recede from his background) so he can have sex with her and not be discovered. But, he injures his penis and releases the foreskin. In contrast to this attempt to be assimilated, he can’t make the sign of the cross when meeting Leni’s mother (Halena Labonarska), and later draws the Star of David on a soaped-up window before rubbing it off. He fakes a toothache so he doesn’t have to undress for a physical examination. However, he must suffer the unanesthetized pulling of the healthy molar, with the scene looking like a sort of Nazi torture act.

While making out with Leni he must stop before it goes too far and he reveals the circumcised penis. When they walk in the woods he finds a massive gathering of Jewish gravestones that must have been removed from a Jewish cemetery by the Nazis. Leni says if she saw a Jew she would slit his throat. She calls Jews lice that must be exterminated. Solly can’t swallow the indignation this time and slaps her. Outraged, she says no one slaps a German woman. It isn’t the “woman” part of her declaration that is noteworthy, it’s the “German” word that is telling, implying her belief in the superiority of the race. After she runs off, he copies the depiction of the hands on a grave marker that resembles partly Spock’s “Live long and prosper,” signal, which Leonard Nimoy derived from his Jewish background.

Solly has a nightmare where he says he is back home joining his family at dinner. But he is wearing a Nazi leather coat with the swastika armband showing how he doesn’t belong. They all leave the room, locking him out so he can’t join them, depriving him of his true home. When he is allowed to enter the next room, his sister hides him, like Anne Frank, and Hitler (Ryszard Pietruski) is there, covering his genitals, because his sister says he must hide his being a Jew. We again have the double motif, as German and Jewish identities are blurred. Hitler turns into Robert, and he is shot in front of Solly, as he relives the horror of war.

Solly returns to where he lived in Germany to look for his relatives. He must travel through the Jewish Ghetto there. The trolley he rides on has soaped-up windows so passengers can’t see the atrocities the Germans have committed, where children are behind barbed wire fences and bodies are carried out of the area. He narrates that he traveled through the ghetto many times because he thought he saw a woman who looked like his mother, but he never finds her.

Back at the Hitler youth school, he must charge with a bayonet and stab a dummy that wears the Jewish Star of David. His attempts are feeble, and he is reprimanded by the instructor. He goes to see Leni, but she is away. Her mother is upset by her daughter’s enraptured devotion to Hitler. She became pregnant to have a child for the Fuhrer. But the mother has Italian blood on her side, so the child may not be pure Aryan. So, Leni plans to offer her child to Hitler. This act sounds like a pagan ritual sacrifice. Her mother says to Solly she doesn’t understand her daughter, who it is suggested has a cult-like attachment to the Nazi cause. Solly guesses that the father of the baby is his roommate at the school, Gerd (Ashley Wanninger). The mother knows that Solly would not have sex with Leni and wants to know the truth. He needs someone to confess to, and he tells her he is Jewish. She says she thought so, and, like the other women in the story, feels drawn to the boy, and promises not to reveal his secret.

Solly’s Certificate of Racial Purity (as if there is such a way to prove this fact, and which would probably require in-breeding), is not among Solly’s records. The commander says he will request it. Solly learns that Hitler has a “miracle weapon” that will be ready for use. The atomic bomb? Just as he thinks he no longer can hide who he is, the building Solly just left is bombed, and the commander is killed. It’s as if divine intervention occurs again to save Solly, but there is collateral damage once more. Gerd is killed in the attack.

The Hitler school students are sent to fight the Russians, but Solly can’t pull the trigger to shoot anyone. He runs off and surrenders to the Russians, claiming he is not a Nazi, but is Jewish. They do not believe him, as they show him pictures of those killed in concentration camps, and Solly would have been one of them. He says he didn’t know, and he is like other Germans who said they did not know of places like Auschwitz. The irony here is that when Solly finally feels he can embrace his Jewish identity, he is to be shot by a liberated inmate of a camp, which would mean a Jew killing another Jew. Solly’s brother, Isaac, from whom he was separated, and is a freed inmate, recognizes him and joyously and emotionally saves him.

Solly feels guilty since he learns his father and mother died in the ghetto and his brother was in a concentration camp while Solly was shouting, “Heil Hitler,” and courting the Nazi Leni. Solly narrates that he went all in concerning his heritage after reuniting with his brother. He went to live in Palestine, which later became the Jewish state of Israel, had boys who were circumcised, and lived openly as a Jew from that point forward.

The next film is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.