Coins DIG

Austrian Stefan Ruzowitzky, being inspired by the autobiography of Adolf Burger, who was one of those surviving the Holocaust, created a film called The Counterfeiters. Ruzowitzky's film tells its viewers a true story of Operation Bernhard, which was the biggest counterfeiting operation in history.

The operation was prepared by the Nazis in 1936 that locked forward to weaken the economies of its allies. Heir goal was to flood them with counterfeit bank notes. Nazis' prisoners were those who carried out the fake banknotes in a location called Sachsenhausen. The latter was a concentration camp where detainees and graphic artists worked on jailed printers and typographers monitored by Nazi camp guards.

The Counterfeiters is a great example of a film filled with suspense. In addition it is quite uncomfortable to watch, due to the fact that besides the horrors it illustrates, it also in a way pushes you to judge those in the "Golden Cage".

Obeying orders to falsify the pound and afterwards the dollar, Nazi's counterfeiters help them in their war. However, in case someone refused to obey orders or even sabotage the operation, those were convicted to execution. There is a certain dilemma brought to the viewers: Sorowitscz - the pragmatic survivalist, the uniform of who has the yellow star mark (Jews) along with green triangle representing "habitual criminals" and Burger – who is a young man, shown as a leftist idealist. The burger was sentenced because he distributed anti-Nazi leaflets.

The first tries to work hard and accomplish Nazi's demands in order to stay alive, while the second one continues to persuade people to revolt.

In very hard and tragic conditions more than 130 million pound sterling were printed. Being considered first-class prisoners, working in a "golden cage" and having enough food and a bed to sleep in, they had a difficult choice to make: in case of sabotage there was death. Besides saving their lives, the prisoners had to save their conscience. The film is based on the book "The Devil's Workshop".