[Perel says] I am German… a purebred German. I’m German. from Grodno. I was in a Bolshevik orphanage.
[Officer 1 says] I can smell Jews.
[Perel says] I’m a German from Grodno. The Bolsheviks forced me into the orphanage.
[Officer 1 says] Carry on! I’ll take him to the sergeant. Amazing to find such a diamond among such filth.
[Officer 2 says] Who asked you. You made your report. now go! Nothing to do? This is not a Jewish school!
[Officer 2 says to Perel] Name?
[Perel says] Peters… Josef Peters.
[Officer 2 says] Your parents are German?
[Perel says] Yeah.
[Officer 2 says] We say jawoh! And where are your parents? [Officer 3 says] He said he was in an orphanage. The Bolsheviks must have killed them. Don’t cry, son. They’ll pay for this. [Officer 2 says] Enough. Your paper, my boy. You can do nothing here without paper (Europa Europa scene)…
The previous quote strengthens the argument, because the use of language can be used to describe a community (in this case the Germans). Also with Perel’s ability to speak German he was able to slip into the German’s identity. Speaking German was his “grammar shared identity” and “homogenous competence” that linked him to acquire the selfhood and identity of the Germans, which is a big turning point in the film. Also, the officer 2 uses very powerful words to illustrate the bond that being German holds. The identity of the descriptive words such as son, and my boy, show the powerful hold of speaking the language of the Germans. This is an important part in the film because it shows the process of changing from one culture into a new culture.
The change in process, whereby members of the marginalized group begin to assimilate their way into the dominant culture, is described by Pratt as transculturation. The affects of transculturation are based upon language use in terms of the changing of an individual’s own characteristics of its previously used identity into another. To clarify:
... the term transculturation [is used] to describe processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or metropolitan culture. The term [is], …aimed to replace overly reductive concepts of acculturation and assimilation [which are] used to characterize culture under conquest. While subordinate peoples do not usually control what emanates from the dominant culture, they do determine to varying extents what gets absorbed into their own and what it gets used for. (Pratt p.523)
This represents to the reader what one culture does to become a part of another. In addition, it describes Pratt’s term “transculturation” and the communities that undergo this term. It also sheds light on the subordinate’s culture and how it does not control the content of the metropolitan culture. Also, the subordinate culture does not have the control over what qualities to assimilate into from by the metropolitan culture, for its newly assimilated selfhood or identity.
Acquiring a certain selfhood and an identity is shown similarly in the film with Perel. The scene takes place in bathroom of the German elite school, properly titled the Hitler Youth School. Perel known by his new identity, Josef Peters, yearns to have the complete identity and selfhood of the metropolitan community comprised of the German students at school. Perel’s attempts of fitting into with the metropolitan culture go as far as to sewing together the foreskin over his penis. The following description is taken from after a two-day endured experience of this form of transculturation:
Tying the foreskin was not successful. Pus had formed under the thread. After the thread was removed, the skin slipped back. I couldn’t escape my own body. I still had to hide (Europa Europa scene).
This form of behavior is shown by Perel to represent his yearning to assimilate into another culture. It shows the extreme process he took to assimilate into the German metropolitan culture. This scene is a great example of transculturation. Solomon is changing the appearance of his penis to resemble that of the German’s.
Perel is extremely cautious about his circumcision, as well with his Jewish hidden identity, in order to maintain his identity he understandings that some things must be sacrificed. He soon shows the effects of this poorly self-performed procedure. He grows sick as a result and requires medical attention; however, physicals at the school are in affect. Then Perel acts as though his tooth is in extreme pain to bypass the physical, because he was told that students must remove clothes. To clarify this scene, Perel’s shows his yearning for transculturation with the example of his use in sacrificing his tooth, which was perfectly fine, to sustain his selfhood and identity.
The sustenance of selfhood and identity of language use in Pratt, figure greatly in the style of the ways communities are imaged. Pratt argues that when language is inappropriate used by characterizing the “imagined” style of a metropolitan culture. She is saying that the use of language is incorporated in the style make-up of a group or community. She elaborates, saying:
First, it[community] is imagined as limited, by ‘finite, if elastic, boundaries’; second, it is imagined as sovereign; and, third, it is imagined as fraternal, ‘a deep, horizontal comradeship’ for which millions of people are prepared ‘not so much to kill as willingly to die.’ As the image suggests, the nation-community is embodied metonymically in the finite, sovereign, fraternal figure of the citizen-soldier. (Pratt p.525)
The prior quote graphically depicts the style in which communities are built with the presence of language. Pratt influences her readers with key terms such as “limited,” “sovereign” and “fraternal.” The previous key terms create the image of the style of communities and show how communities are closed off; communities never contain access-granted entries, entrance into the community is only in the form of birth. Communities are also elite in relation to other groups, and lastly this shows a bond or comradeship amongst the occupants.
The occupants that comprise an elite culture are shown in the scene that dealt with the classroom discussion by a teacher at the Hitler Youth School entitled “How do you recognize a Jew.” This scene is important in Pratt’s approach to language use in identity and selfhood. Here the German teacher descriptively identifies exaggerated images of Jews. The teacher then ends the discussion with images of a Nordic Man (Nordic Man is defined as: human physical type exemplified by the tall, narrow-headed, light-skinned, blond-haired peoples of Scandinavia) housing qualities of a magnificent human being. Right before the teacher calls Solomon up to be examined, the teacher says:
[Teacher at the H.Y. School speaks to the class] How do you recognize a Jew? The composition of Jewish blood is totally different from ours. The Jew has a high forehead…a hooked nose…a flat back of the head…ears that stick out…and he has an ape-like walk.
[The camera frames a frightened student]
His eyes are shifty… and cunning. He never looks you in the eye. He waves his hands about…makes exaggerated gestures… and he fawns before you. But the minute your back is turned… he leaps at your throat! The Nordic Man… is the gem of this earth. He’s the most glowing example… of the joy of creation. He is not only the most talented…but the most beautiful. His hair is as light as ripened wheat…his eyes are blue like the summer sky. His movements are harmonious. His body is perfect. Sciences … objective. Science… is incorruptible. As I have already told you… If you thoroughly understand racial differences… no Jew will ever be able to deceive you. Peters step forward (Europa Europa).
In this scene, shown with the classroom teacher at the Hitler Youth School, and the students along with Solomon, there is great emphasis on the style of a community. The limited, sovereign and fraternal aspects that house the style of a community are shown with the use of language. The teacher is describing the style of dissimilar qualities of a Jew and a Nordic Aryan individual described as a pureblooded German. Here the teacher is perpetuating negative imageries of a Jew compared to a Nordic Man in the students’ minds, to be further strengthened in years to come. The images described of a Jew create negative thoughts of how the children will then perceive Jews for years to come.
The perceived images, as shown to the students, are privileged, sovereign, and fraternal. These aspects that make up their imagination result in causing the children to grow throughout life with the knowledge provided by the teacher; and by which they will hold the power of authority over any other group or community. In addition, with having the power over other communities, they also have the sense of being pure blood, with which all Germans are connected together similarly like “closely related brothers.” What's more in result these styles should make up the children’s community, with the use of language.
The different aspects that make up a community stand on the basis of language use. The use of language in the two pieces’ by Agnieszka Holland and Mary Louise Pratt speak to the idea of achieving identity and selfhood. Pratt argues the understanding of the issues of language using the terms of inclusion, identity, and selfhood. She wants the use of any particular group to take note of her previously made issues in hopes of shaping a better and greater world. Pratt’s main focus from the issues spoken about is to get her readers to extrapolate deeper into the issues of the power of language.
The use of language is shown greatly in Pratt’s essay titled “Arts of the Contact Zone.” She focuses on how language is described and shown through the style of a community. In addition to their descriptions and styles of a community, she takes a deeper look into the term she uses called transculturation which is accomplished by means of assimilation of one group’s identity into another group’s identity. Moreover Pratt emphasizes that the term transculturation is a key factor in identifying a particular identity with the use of language. Agnieszka Holland’s film, Europa Europa, uses examples of a Jewish childhood experience in relation to the issues such as “limited,” “sovereign” and “fraternal” dealt with language use. She uses the example of a Jewish child named Solomon Perel, from who assimilated into the German identity during the Nazi invasion. The essay along with the film shed great emphasis on language, which shape our identity and selfhood in relation to the world.
