3 real historical locations · Belarus, Poland, Russia
Agnieszka Holland's extraordinary film based on the true story of Solomon Perel, a German-Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust by hiding in plain sight — first in the Soviet Union, then being mistaken for an Aryan and enrolled in a Hitler Youth school after capture.
CinemaMapped has mapped 3 real historical locations where the story takes place, spanning Belarus, Poland, Russia.
Young Jewish boy Solly Perel flees eastward when Germany invades Poland in 1939 — his family is separated and his brother killed as he begins an odyssey of s...
The real Solomon Perel was born in Peine, Germany in 1925 and fled to Poland with his family. When Germany invaded, he separated from his family and fled east. His parents and sister were later murdered in the Łódź Gh...
View location →Solly finds refuge in Soviet-occupied Poland, joining a Communist youth organisation — but Germany's 1941 invasion reverses everything overnight as he is cap...
After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in September 1939, Grodno (now in Belarus) came under Soviet control. Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941 rapidly overran Soviet forces in the region. Perel was captured an...
View location →Posing as German orphan Josef Peters, Solly is sent to an elite Hitler Youth military school in East Prussia — hiding his Jewish identity while surrounded by...
Perel served with Wehrmacht's 12th Panzer Division as an interpreter before being sent to a Hitler Youth school in Brunswick (not East Prussia — the film takes artistic licence). He survived by concealing his circumci...
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