The Hitler Youth Romance Movie Trailer Is Out, And It’s Just As Gross As You Imagined

Image by iStock/Forward Montage

By Jenny Singer September 4, 2018

A trailer has been released for the much-anticipated movie “Where Hands Touch” by Amma Asante, which follows a biracial German teen as she faces danger under Nazi-occupation and falls in love with a member of the Hitler Youth.

via GIPHY

It’s gonna be a no from us.

And it’s a bummer, because the intention behind “Where Hands Touch” — to share the seldom-taught and misunderstood stories of biracial and black victims of the Nazi regime — is hugely valuable. Asante’s desire to use moviemaking to represent the underrepresented is crucial, and Amandla Stenberg is a magnificent presence and budding superstar.

But a star-crossed love story between a Holocaust victim and a Hitler Youth just won’t fly. Watching a young woman crawl out from beneath the floorboards and then cut to a steamy make-out with a boy in an armband should be a hard pass — in 2018 and any time. “The Sound of Music” was released in 1965 and it’s taken some of us that whole time to realize that Hitler heil-ing dream boy Rolf is a scumbag from start to finish — Asante’s noble Nazi-boy should take his short-shorts and cutesy ethno-nationalism and scram, too.

We surmise that the blame lies with the studio or producers, rather than new-ish auteur Assante, for not allowing a period drama about a biracial woman to make it to production without a plot-line about verboten hanky-panky with a genocide-enthusiast. But it won’t do.

“Where Hands Touch” will be in theaters starting September 14:

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO