Genuine 'Counterfeiters': Faking it for survival



By Mark Hinson • DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER • March 21, 2008


In an effort to destabilize the English pound, the Germans rounded up specialized Jewish prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp and ordered them to print fake money. They perfected the English bank notes and sent them into circulation. They were on the verge of flooding the market with phony American dollars when the Nazi regime fell apart in 1945. Most of the forced forgers survived the war.
The fascinating, tense and absorbing Austrian drama "The Counterfeiters" — which won this year's Oscar for best foreign film — tells a complex story about the top-secret Operation Bernhard. Yes, it's another gritty, grim Holocaust film, but this one takes a slightly different approach, one where the dark times are not always painted in black and white.
The impressive Austrian actor Karl Markovics, who has an unforgettable face straight out of a George Grosz caricature, plays the morally flexible Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch. He's a master forger and fast-living scoundrel who's making a mint in the Weimar-era Berlin underground churning out faux passports and bogus Deutschmarks.
"Trying not so hard to get noticed gets you noticed," the cool, cocky Sally advises one of his barroom pals who's a bit jittery on the night before Sally is about to pack up and leave town.
Sally's luck runs out and he's arrested. Because he's a Russian Jew and deemed a "habitual criminal," he's packed off to Mauthausen in 1939. It's not Sally's first time behind bars so he applies his earlier prison experiences to survive in the Nazi labor camp. He immediately ingratiates himself with the German officers by painting flattering portraits of them in their ridiculous Nazi regalia. In a way, the portraits are as fake as the funny money he used to make.
Thanks to his talent, Sally is re-assigned to Sachsenhausen. He's placed with a team of engravers, printers, artists and bankers who've been recruited from other death factories, such as the infamous Auschwitz. Sachsenhausen is the Four Seasons compared to the other camps. The prisoners sleep on bunks with sheets and are fed more than table scraps.
Sally quickly establishes himself as the most valuable player. His plan to survive at all costs is working until a run-in with an idealistic printer, Burger (August Diehl). The printer, an unrepentant communist who was shipped off to Auschwitz with his wife, points out that their efforts may be prolonging the war by financing the German murder machine.
"The Counterfeiters" presents the 20th century's worst nightmare as a hellish morass where even its victims lost their moral bearings. It also deals with the guilt many survivors experienced by making it through to the end. Fascism pushed everyone into a no-win situation. The movie may be about making fake money, but it feels about as genuine as it gets.

Genuine 'Counterfeiters': Faking it for survival | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman