Thursday, January 22, 2009, 7:00 PM

The Counterfeiters

(Germany, 2007, Color, German w/English subtitles, 98 mins.)

Based on the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian.  After getting arrested and then being sent to a German concentration camp in 1944, Sal is forced to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeit operation set up to flood and destroy the Allied economies.  “Operation Bernhard” was born. It became the biggest counterfeit money scam of all times.

As the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies.  They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers.  At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiter’s workshop.

The prisoners had a choice: if they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive, as first-class prisoners in a “golden cage” with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in.  If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them.  For the counterfeiters, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well.  (Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky)

2008 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film
Official Selection 2007 Telluride Film Festival
Official Selection 2007 Toronto International Film Festival

Speaker: Kenneth Hoffman, Director of Education, National World War II Museum, New Orleans