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Walking with the Enemy
by Melissa Wlostoski
This movie features the story of Elek Cohen who posing as a Nazi rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II. In 1944, Hungary having stayed out of the violence thanks to alliance with the Nazi started to fail. We are treated to a prelude of that failing, how things were for people at the moment and what leads Elek to start posing as a Nazi. Elek is at a club dancing and someone starts to insult a friend of his. We get a glimpse to what kind of person he is. He is a fighter. This is also where he meets a woman called Hannah who would help him along with several friends in rescuing Jews. The leader of Hungary at this point is saying what have I done when it comes to the alliance with Germany. As the Nazi come to Budapest, Elek and the friend Elek defended are told to go home to their village by their boss. They do just that. We are treated to a little bit of interaction of them with their families. But things don't stay okay for long. Elek and his friend Ferenc have to go to a labor camp or be killed. The place is horrible. A sick laborer is killed because he can't work. It almost happens to a second but bombing planes come. At this moment Elek and his friend Ferenc escape and run home to find their families gone.
They go back to Budapest to find their boss alive and in a ghetto with other Jews. As for the leader of Hungary he has managed to make an arrangement with a Swiss official passports of protection for Jews with ties to Swiss citizenship. Elek and his friend Ferenc along with Hannah, the young woman who eventually aids him with the rescue missions become involved with making these and giving the to Jewish people, While this is going on, he takes an orphaned boy who's parents got killed by the Nazi to an orphanage. When making these passports, someone comments that passport are lives. That thought was correct. Beside helping that boy, he manages to stop two SS officers who come into a ghetto after Hannah. Her father is killed. But Elek manages to take care of two SS officers before they hurt Hannah. This event leads them to have two SS uniforms available. While they are giving out the passports, his friend Ferenc is taken by the Nazi into custody. Elek states "We need to do something". His boss points out only SS officers are allowed where Frenen is. This is where the uniforms come in and where posing as a Nazi starts. Elek, Ferenc and several of his friends, as Nazi officers start rounding up Jews from the Nazi. They are doing this as the violence of the war starts coming down on them. Elek uses the uniform of SS officer to talk with other SS officers in order to learn the fate of his family. His family was put to death at Auschwitz, one of the infamous concentration camps. This was learned by Elek through, an SS officer telling him about the camps. There is also a brief interaction with a decent German officer who finds the actions that people are doing to the Jews to be horrible. Like I said the violence from the war starts to come down on Budapest, The rescue missions get riskier for Elek and his friends. A German soldier from a previous rescue mission remembers him and shoots the Jews anyway. One of Elek's friends helping him is killed. Then another friend who's a part of the rescue missions is killed. Then the violence of the war is in Budapest and Hannah has to go to the orphanage where that boy was taken, in order to help them move.. Elek goes to find her and pretends to be dead in order to avoid the shooting Russians. He puts a rifle on the Nazi soldiers who are about to shoot them as they have gotten away from too close fighting. The decent German officer shows up and order them not to fire on the group. But then orphaned boy act like he knows Elek which he does and Elek is shot. Then his shooter is killed by decent German officer. At this point, I think he's not going survival. Elek says I love you to Hannah. Hannah says I love you to Elek.
13 years later, we are treated to the wedding of that orphaned boy who's now a man. We see several people there who knew Elek and helped the Jews. The boy makes a toast to his father and accredited him with saving many lives including his own and then we see him embrace his father who turned out to be Elek. Elek says I love you to Hannah. Hannah says I love you to Elek. To me, that turns out to be the nicest twist to ever happen in a movie.
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Melissa Wlostoski