It is based on the 1989 autobiography of Solomon Perel, a German-Jewish boy who escaped the Holocaust by masquerading as a Nazi and joining the Hitler Youth.

The film's title refers to World War II's division of continental Europe, resulting in a constant national shift of allegiances, identities, and front lines.

In 1938, in Nazi Germany, on the eve of thirteen-year-old Solomon "Solek" Perel's bar mitzvah, Kristallnacht occurs.

Solek lives in the orphanage for two years, where he joins the Komsomol, receives a communist education, and learns Russian.

He takes a romantic interest in Inna, a young instructor who defends him when the authorities discover his class origin is bourgeois.

Using his German-Russian bilingual language skill, "Josef" helps the unit identify a prisoner as Yakov Dzhugashvili, Joseph Stalin's son.

A closeted homosexual German soldier named Robert discovers Solek's secret but shows solidarity and sympathizes with him as they share a common ground of being in danger of persecution due to their backgrounds.

As he crosses a bridge, German soldiers charge across behind him, and the Soviet troops surrender; Solek is hailed as a hero.

The company commander decides to adopt Solek and send him to the elite Hitler Youth Academy in Braunschweig, to receive a Nazi education.

[6] Writing for the Los Angeles Times, critic Michael Wilmington lauded the film's multi-faceted structure, calling Europa Europa "a tense suspense story, an ironic romance, and a truly black comedy — all driving toward a dark crisis of identity".

[7] In a positive review, Janet Maslin of The New York Times said it "accomplishes what every film about the Holocaust seeks to achieve: It brings new immediacy to the outrage by locating specific, wrenching details that transcend cliche".

[8] Hal Hinson, of The Washington Post, praised the direction, saying "Holland isn't a dour moral instructor; she's an ironist with a deft ability to capture the absurd aspects of her material and keep them in balance with the tragic".

[13][14][15] The omission prompted leading German film-makers to write a public letter of support for the film and its director, Agnieszka Holland.