Europa

In the United States, Europa Europa - the true story of a Jewish boy who burned his racial-identity papers and posed as a member of Hitler Youth to avoid detection by the Nazis - is the most commercially successful German- language film since Das Boot (1982). Saturday night, in Hollywood, it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. But in its own country, Europa does not possess its hero's charmed fate. Because of questions about the movie's ethnic origins, the German commission that selects its country's Oscar entry for best foreign-language film has chosen not to submit the effort directed by Polish-born Agnieszka Holland and produced by a Franco-German partnership.

Anthony Hopkins was voted best actor, Jodie Foster best actress, and the movie they starred in, The Silence of the Lambs, best picture by the 57th annual New York Film Critics Circle yesterday. Jonathan Demme was also named best director for Lambs. Other winners: Samuel Jackson, best supporting actor for Jungle Fever; Judy Davis, best supporting actress for Barton Fink; John Singleton, best new director for Boyz N the Hood; Europa, Europa, best foreign film and Paris Is Burning, best documentary.

Europa, Europa tells the incredible story of a Jewish teenager who survived Nazism by posing as a Nazi. His life was in constant peril, and Agnieszka Holland has drawn an extraordinary, unforgettable film from it by taking hair- raising risks herself. In the odyssey of Solomon Perel, Holland has found something beyond the tears invariably prompted by the vast and still resonating tragedy of the Holocaust - tears of laughter. Moviegoers long accustomed to the sobering, traditional presentations of the darkest hours in human history will initially be disconcerted.

While debate continues on a Europe united with a common currency and a single parliament, postal administrations already have taken the lead in such an alliance. Since 1956, European countries have been issuing the Europa commemoratives with a common theme and logo of the European Conference of Postal Telecommunications, widely known as CEPT. On Tuesday, the English Channel island of Jersey will issue four CEPT stamps. The Jersey stamps depict spacecraft orbiting the Earth and supplying data relevant to the island.

Stamps printed in booklets are ordinary definitives sold for convenience and created with little regard to aesthetics. The U.S. Postal Service, however, is about to change its policy. The Postal Service will issue a booklet of 25-cent stamps Friday with first-day ceremonies in Rapid City, S.D. The stamp design features a colorful ring-necked pheasant taking off in flight. The pheasant is South Dakota's state bird. The booklet's full-color cover depicts a pheasant standing in tall grass.

West Germany will issue six stamps tomorrow, including two Europa commemoratives promoting protection of nature and the environment. The Europa stamps, 60 and 80 pfennigs, call attention to the worldwide campaign against the pollution of water and air, but the government post office has reached back nearly 500 years for the designs. To symbolize water and air as perceived by the senses, the stamps are printed with the enlarged details of the mouth and nose from Michelangelo's famous sculpture David, which was completed in 1504.