International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the date that the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army, on 27 January 1945. Thus, 78 years have now passed since the world was shocked by the monumental loss of Jews, Romani, homosexuals and other marginalised communities.
Batalha marks this date with a screening of Europa Europa (1990), by Agnieszka Holland. The film is based on the true story of Solomon Perel, a Jewish boy who avoids being sent to the concentration camps first by pretending to be a Russian in Soviet-occupied territory, and then, in the Third Reich’s territory, an Aryan German. Solomon’s internal battle — an unusual case of survival through erasure and substitution of identity — takes place against the backdrop of a Europe whose uncertain borders had been lacerated by war.
Europa Europa received acclaim from critics on release, especially for the daring way in which it inserted dark humour into the setting of the Holocaust. However, it was this very characteristic — which some perceived as making light of the subject — that caused the German commission to withdraw the film from its shortlist of candidates for the Oscars, prompting a manifesto of support for Agnieszka Holland from other German directors.