An unconventional
take on the Holocaust
The Counterfeiters is a movie about the Holocaust. The
trouble with any movie about the Holocaust is it will
always present some measure of predictability. Any
viewer with the slightest awareness of world history will
understand that what they’re sitting down to isn’t going
to be pretty. The film will always be difficult to watch,
brutal in its depictions of the most shameful chapter of
European histor); it will be tragic and thoughtful, thought-provoking and, for most,
nauseating (both physically and existentially). When a Holocaust movie manages: to
cover this particularly unsettling ground and still subvert certain expectations, it’s
quite an achievement. The best Holocaust films of the past:few years have also been
the most unusual ones: consider Life is Beautiful (about Italian Jews, it dared to be
funny and uplifting) and the less popular but nevertheless astounding Amen (about
the obsessive Catholic guilt of an SS officer and a priest during the Second World
War). I’ll now add to:that list this odd and gripping German production, based on a
true story from the memoirs of Jewish printer Adolf Burger. ,

Burger himself is a character in the story—and possibly the most heartbreaking
figure amongst many—but he’s not the protagonist here. Instead, we see
through the eyes of former professional counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl
Markowics), who teads a team of imprisoned former printers, photographers,
bankers, and artists in the Nazis’ secret foreign-currency counterfeiting operation.

Arrested for forgery in Berlin in 1936, Sorowitsch made his way to the
concentration camps as a prisoner, not as a Jew, and by the time we see him again
in 1939, headed to Sachsenhausen camp, he’s clearly learned the tricks necessary
to survive in the harshest conditions. Markowics’ wry, wincing smile suits his
character perfectly and Sorowitsch is a fascinating mess of contradictions. But
I’d argue that even he is not the most interesting character in The Caunterfeiters.
Herzog (Devid Streisow) is the cop who arrested Sorowitsch years earlier, and
now he’s the Nazi officer in charge of rounding up halfway-talented prisoners
and making them forge pounds and dollars. To get these men to do his bidding,
he gives them what he calls “incentives”: decent living conditions, protection
from the savagery of other officers, cigarettes, and a ping-pong table. He even
gives Sorowitsch a degree of honesty from time to time. The man is Sorowitsch’s
perfect counterpart; he claims he’s merely doing whatever it takes to survive.
He’s more like the scariest boss you’ ve ever had than his sadistic, jack-booted
colleagues. While it would be going too far to say that Herzog is a sympathetic
character, he’s certainly more nuanced than most other Nazis in film. He’s no Oskar
Schindler, but he has a pulse, and that’s tough to pull off. Together, director Stefan
Ruzowitsky’s careful hand and Striesow’s masterful portrayal create a Nazi who’s
too complicated to be just evil. And that complexity is a major part of why The
Counterfeiters succeeds.
- Regan Taylor

 

 

 

March 17, 2008

 

How to survive in
moral vacuum

The Counterfeiters uncovers a little known piece of
Nazi concentration camp history and turns it into a
riveting drama of survival. As my colleague Regan has
already pointed out, a motley group of Jewish men—
some from legitimate and others from not-so-legitimate
backgrounds and led by master counterfeiter Salomon
(Sally) Sorowitsch—are taken out of the concentration
camp death-stream and set to work counterfeiting foreign currency for the Third
Reich: For the Nazis, the plan was, somehow, to flood the US and British markets
with their own currency and by doing so undermine their economies. In essence,
the men get to stay alive not only by helping the enemy, but by perhaps extending
the war and necessarily adding to a greater death toll as well. Of course, it is a

deal with the devil, and the irony is not lost on the men, but in the end the need to
survive overrules, sometimes brutally, and any lingering doubts the counterfeiters
may have regarding the nature of their work.

If The Counterfeiters can be reduced to a single themevit is survival.
Throughout the film, Sally, who is far from being an upright citizen, and played by
Karl Markowics like someone-accustomed to life on the dark side, knows what side
of the moral dilemma he is on. In a conversation with Adolf Burger (August Diehl),
his young idealistic foil, Sally says, “I’d rather be gassed tomorrow than shot today.
A day is a day.” And this seems to be the reigning sentiment among the rest of the
men.

When we are. given glimpses into Sally’s life outside of forced labour and
concentration camps, we see an apparently selfish man given fits of esthetic
fancy. Next to the moral absolutist Burger, Sally seems.a downright scoundrel.
Consequently, the differences in their characters leads to some of the film’s most
tension-filled moments: Burger is willing to sabotage the group’s work and risk
death in order to.resist a ruthless enemy, while Sally must perform a high-wire act
to simultaneously appease his Nazi captors and not lose Burger’s indispensable
skills as a typographer. In this way, the line between self-preservation and selfless
concern for the welfare of others is brilliantly obscured.

Adding to the film’s sense of moral inconclusiveness is the relationship
between SS Chief Inspector Friedrich Herzog (performed by a boyish Devid
Striesow)—the man in charge of overseeing the counterfeiting operation—and ~
Sally. In a very real way the two men are exact reflections of the other: they are
both working to save their own skins. With the war coming to a close, Herzog is
forced into playing the survival game as well. Towards the end of the film when
he says to Sally, “One has to look after oneself,” he is essentially repeating the
same selfish attitude of the counterfeiter. But Herzog’s basic treatment of Sally and
his men, his affording them a measure of comfort and care while surrounded by
deprivation, makes his character hard to equate with cinematized versions of the
evil Nazi.

Filmed on grainy stock and seemingly through a grey filter, The Counterfeiters
retains the sense of unreality, of existing in a world where meaning and truth are
inherently unstable. But this shouldn’t be a surprise given a situation where basic
human survival outweighs any competing interest, moral or otherwise.

- Pat Mackenzie 1 5