Young Johannes Metzler is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth in Vienna as World War II breaks out. Allied bombing leaves him crippled, but his allegiance to Hitler remains unfazed. So it shakes his world when he discovers that his parents have been hiding Elsa, a Jewish girl, in a secret room. His first impulse is to kill her, as he believes a true Nazi would do, but then he falls in love with her.
Years pass. Both of his parents are killed as traitors, yet no one discovers Elsa's hiding place. When the war ends, Johannes fears Elsa will leave him, so he convinces her that Germany won and that her life remains in danger. The boy finds it difficult to get a job because of his injuries, so for them to survive he must sell off all the possessions in the large house and finally the house itself. He ships Elsa in a box to a small apartment.
Leunens portrays neither of these young people as sympathetic characters. By the end they seem to deserve each other, and eventually Johannes realizes that he is the one who is the prisoner.
I was shocked to discover that Caging Skies was the inspiration for the film Jojo Rabbit, a comedy in which Johannes (Jojo) stays the same age throughout the entire war and Elsa remains beautiful and perfectly groomed despite being imprisoned in a small room for years. Hitler himself keeps showing up as an imaginary comic character. I think I might have actually enjoyed the oddball movie if I weren't, at the time I watched it, still reading the somber, depressing novel on which it was based.
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