The Counterfeiters

The Counterfeiters

Starring: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

The film: Stefan Ruzowitzky's Oscar-winning film is a fictionalised account of Operation Bernhard, Nazi Germany's audacious but unsuccessful scheme to destabilise the British economy by flooding the country with forged sterling banknotes. The fake currency was made in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by inmates pressed into service by the Nazis, and the film is based on the memoirs of one of the counterfeiters, Jewish Slovak printer Adolf Burger (He was the only inmate to be represented in the film as himself).

However, the film's central protagonist is Salomon Sorowitsch, a fast-living Jewish document-forger who was arrested for his crimes before ending up in the concentration camp. At first a lowly detainee, Sorowitsch is elevated by the camp commanders to lead the team churning out fake money.

What follows gives Ruzowitzky's film a twist different to other concentration camp stories such as Life is Beautiful or Fearless. Because of their 'contributions' to the German war effort, the team is housed in a section with much better living conditions, including table tennis and classical music for recreation, and the privilege of staging and watching the occasional vaudeville show.