Metamorphosis of Faith-Remembering the Movie "Europa, Europa". This is an unusual World War II film. Different from many films I have seen in the past about the Nazi massacre of Jews, Germany's blindly hideous face, the tragic fate of the Jews' persecution, or a few heroic characters who use their wisdom and heroic light to light up the darkness A gleam of light in the years In "Europa, Europa", we see a Jewish teenager who had the same birthday as Hitler. In order to survive the war, he fled from his hometown to the Soviet Union to join the Communist Youth League. He did not hesitate to abandon his Jewish identity, joining the German army, and becoming a fighting hero of the German army, becoming what Hitler called "hope for the future". He is by no means a so-called conscious hero who is proud of his identity no matter where he is or who never betrays his motherland and nation. He is just an ordinary young man eager to survive in the smoke and blood. In the eyes of some people, he can even be regarded as a "speculator".
He gave the Nazi salute at the Nazi military academy; he shouted "Long live the Führer" at the portrait of Hitler; he tried to pull up his foreskin and fasten it with a rope to erase his "circumcision" of the Jewish nation. He also fell in love with an Aryan girl who worshipped Nazis; he rode through the ghetto in a closed car like a German; like a German soldier, he took the puppet that stabbed the Jews with a bayonet... He carefully hid in the German army, and he never really killed any Jews or Soviets, and the mother-like figure in the isolation area always whipped his heart, facing the beautiful The eyes that the girl longed for in her passion, but he could only push her away because she had been "circumcised" because of her cruel, ignorant, and blind hatred of the Jews. He didn't forget that he was Jewish, but he wanted to live too much. He finally couldn't hold back his inner struggles and pains and threw his gun at the coalition forces, but the Nazi uniform on his body proved that he did not suffer the pain of his Jewish compatriots. The uniform on his body seemed to be his betrayal of Jewish identity — Joseph, the German name he used. It wasn't until he faced the muzzle of his compatriots in the Soviet military camp and shouted from his hometown comrade that he remembered his real name, a name like a previous life-Solly. I can finally admit that I am a Jew.
The Jews are a nation that has suffered for thousands of years. Because Christianity believes that Jews are descendants of Judas, who betrayed Jesus, For thousands of years, they have been tossing and turning to avoid massacres. Jews are wise and persevering. Therefore, no matter where they are, in the eyes of some people, they are always the representatives of rich merchants: greedy, exploitative. Although the world began to move towards equality after entering the 20th century, in the 1930s, when the economy was depressed, "anti-Semitism" became the most appealing and provocative slogan along with "socialism" and "nationalism". Germans, especially passionate young Germans, gathered under Hitler, who held these three slogans high. In fact, they just want to build a prosperous country. Their hatred of Jews comes from incitement through education and from a blind love for the country. When they stood on the battlefield and died for their patriotic ideals, they were nothing more than sacrifices for careerists.
When I saw Solly give up his religious beliefs and his national dignity in order to survive, I don't know whether to praise his "bendable wisdom" as a Jew or pity his weakness and cowardice. While watching this movie, I was suddenly reminded of Kafka's Metamorphoses. In fact, this book has another translation name, that is, "metamorphosis." Everyone is familiar with this story. It is a ridiculous story about a man turning into a worm. The protagonist has changed from a normal person living under the pressure of work and family to a worm who needs to be fed by his sister and curled up in a corner. The only thing that hasn't changed is his complex emotions and thoughts.
From a human to a worm, this is a kind of degeneration, but it is also a "metamorphosis" of escape. Suddenly, I felt that Solly was like this person. Under the pressure of the war, he abandoned his identity as a "human" and "degenerated" into a "worm," curled up in the German army, hiding in the shadows to protect himself——Jupp. It seems like it is schizophrenic, struggling and wandering in different identities and positions. When the Germans listened to his so-called "German expatriate" lie and cared for him as a real brother, when he saw the Germans cry for their army's defeat, he was confused. He didn't understand why just an identity, a "Jewish" name, could make them so cruel.
Are Jews and Germans really so drastically different? When Solly was in the German military academy, in the so-called "How to Identify Jews" class, he was called out as a teaching example by the instructor who claimed to know Jews and could identify Judas at the first time, and finally identified him as "Aryan" or "People." I think Solly should be like me in front of the screen, feeling absurd and ridiculous in addition to being frightened.
The appearance, stature, and movements of a person cannot tell whether he or she is Jewish or German.The only sign is the "circumcision" performed by the Jewish people after birth, and this is also an unchangeable sign that will stay with him for a lifetime. Daily prayers before meals, eating boiled eggs dipped in salt water at harvest festivals, and loyalty to God are their unchangeable beliefs. But this belief has been subverted again and again in the face of war, death, upheaval, and displacement.
In the Soviet Union, Solly joined the Komsomol in order to live a better life, and Stalin's Komsomol made it impossible for him to worship God. When another young Jewish man in Poland rebuked him for abandoning God, he had nothing to say, but when the young Jewish man shouted "God give us candy" from the roof, all they got was silence. When the young Soviet instructor shouted, "Stalin, give us candy," hundreds of candies fell through the skylight, and the children scrambled to grab them. The absurd plot tells us that in the Soviet Union, Stalin was equated with God. Most of the original Russians believed in the Orthodox Church, but in the revolution and war, the illusory god was abandoned, and Stalin, who had strong will and inviolable majesty, was shaped into a new "God". Stalin became their new faith.
And what Hitler carried out in Germany was also a movement to establish a new faith. "The German nation is the best nation," while "the Jews are the inferior nation." He believed that God created different races, and each race fought for survival. This is a kind of "natural selection, survival of the fittest." The theory of evolution Hitler did not believe in Catholicism. He established such a religion of the jungle in Germany. Due to the economic depression and turmoil in Germany at that time, he quickly gained a large number of firm believers. Even Leni, the girl Solly loves in the film, thinks she should sacrifice a pure-blood child for the Führer. The admiration of Hitler among young people has become like a god.
In Solly's view, "religion is only the opium of the spirit." What is the use of praying before meals? When God did not give them a stable life, when God did not give them a fresh life, when he was struggling in the ruins, when he was hiding in the fire, where was God? The despair brought about by the war made many people abandon their original beliefs. God is like "Godot", and in people's endless waiting, it becomes boring, boring and ethereal. "Are we tied to Godot?" When people begin to doubt, question, despair and go unanswered, they have to turn their hopes to living and powerful forces. And whether it was Stalin or Hitler, they became the new gods of the Germans and Slavs at that time.
In the history of human beings, there have been many movements to create gods, but this time, when the living people are turned into gods again and again, and then the status of the living people is maintained as a god, I don't know how many people's blood is flowing. From Jesus to Stalin, Hitler, and all kinds of absurd farces in modern Chinese history, they were all initiated by the people at the bottom, seeking new powers to save themselves after despair. "God is dead," so we have to create a new God.
For Solly, neither Stalin nor Hitler were his gods. For him, living has become the only belief. He didn't want to hurt anyone, and he knew he was Jewish, but God couldn't return his family, God couldn't let him live. He could only rely on one lie after another, huddled in the shadow of his identity, like a collapsed cave, trying to find a ray of sunshine through the gap.
There are two dreamlike scenes in the film, one where Stalin and Hitler dance intimately. These two "artificial gods" sacrificed the interests of small countries for each other's interests and formed a filthy secret agreement, but this was only a delaying plan under Hitler's ambition. After the dance, a statue of Stalin appeared between Stalin and Hitler, suddenly split in two from the middle-a war between the two "gods" was imminent. In another scene, Solly dreams that he is wearing a Nazi armband and returns home, but his family is indifferent to him. The bomber drove by, the house trembled, the war started again, and the family panicked and asked him to hide in the closet, and the other person in the closet was Hitler! "He always protects his hands in front of him, and he is also a Jew!" The story about Hitler's Jewish blood has been passed down for a long time, and such a picture in the movie is even more sharp irony.
In the ending of Kafka's "Metamorphosis", the protagonist knows that he will be abandoned by the world when he hears his sister, who has been feeding him, say: "What if this worm is not a brother from beginning to end?" He really isn't alone anymore without a family that acknowledges him. In the body of a bug, he died in people's oblivion. Fortunately, there are still people who can recognize Solly in those chaotic times. When the Soviets did not believe that he was a Jew and when he was about to be shot to death by the revenge of his compatriots, with a call from his childhood companions, he changed from the German Jupp back to Solly, a pure Jew. When Solly had a child, he hesitated for a moment, but circumcised his child anyway. This is his final identification with his nation. Recognition is not easy to come by. Especially when this identity is only maintained by blood beliefs, it also becomes more fragile and even absurd.
In fact, Jews are lucky. After all, faith is a force that supports the survival of a person and even a nation. And what about us? Now China is truly an era facing a lack of faith. In other words, we have never had true beliefs for a long time, and some simply worship the power of the emperor. The emperor said that we should destroy the Buddha, and the emperor said that we should respect Taoism and Confucianism, and we should respect Taoism and Confucianism. And today, without the Son of Heaven, where is our faith? Fortunately, China is not a nation that needs faith to "identify" its own nation.
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