The Counterfeiters (4 Stars)

This Austrian film won the Oscar in 2007 for Best Foreign Language Film. According to Amazon's infallible memory, I bought it on DVD on 11th October 2008, almost eleven years ago, but today is only the second time I've watched it. I forget films sometimes.

In the 1930's the Jewish Ukrainian Salomon Smolianoff, nicknamed Sally, was the world's most notorious forger. He lived in Berlin and became rich by forging passports for Jews who wanted to leave the country. It wasn't out of any love for his fellow Jews, it was just business, and he heartlessly refused to help anyone who couldn't pay enough. He thought he was immune from persecution, because high ranking Nazi officials were among his customers, but he was wrong. He was sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where he survived by painting portraits for the prison guards.

In 1944 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp to lead a group of Jewish counterfeiters in an attempt to forge British bank notes. It was thought that Germany could wreck the British economy by flooding the market with fake money. Even though they were prisoners, they enjoyed relative comfort. They had soft beds, and they received better food than the other Jews in the camp. They were allowed to wear smart clothing instead of prison uniforms.

They succeeded in forging British bank notes, and they printed more than £136 million. That's the equivalent of £5.7 billion in today's money. After this the counterfeiters duplicated the American dollar, but it was too late in the war to print enough notes to harm the American economy.

This is a fascinating true story that shows a side of the Second World War that's often forgotten. Not all Jews were in constant danger of being gassed. They feared that after succeeding in creating perfect bank notes they would be executed, but the war ended too soon for them to find out if their fears were justified.

Sally wasn't a pleasant person. He did what he had to do to survive. Maybe it was more than that. It was a challenge for him to make a perfect forgery of the American dollar. He wanted to prove to himself that he could do it.

Success Rate:  + 1.2

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