The Counterfeiters (2007)

I avoided this movie for a long time--I think any movie that resides within a World War II concentration camp for the bulk of the story is going to be tough. In this one, I cannot imagine where they got so many ematiated actors for the end of the war scenes--special effects? I don't know. I do know from WWII veterans who participated in liberating the camps that it was traumatic to witness the effects of that sort of barbarism. So I took this movie on because I have been recently hospitalized, and rather than feel sorry for myself, I have instead chosen to focus on the greater tragedies of others.
The New York Times review of this movie starts out with a quote from Primo Levi, based on his time in Auschwitz, who thought that only the bad survive such conditions. Meaning that you had to be willing to do anything, ignore everyone, and still you might not make it. It was the guy who would take the bread out of a dying man's hand and eat it who would come out to tell the tale. “The Counterfeiters" is in some ways an illustration of this point of view. It is a survivor’s tale, and its protagonist, at least at first, seems long on hustsaph and short on what we might call scruples. He is Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch, a master forger and a fixture of the Berlin underworld. An enterprising Nazi officer, who had arrested Sally before the war for falsifying currency, enlists him in a scheme to counterfeit British and American money. The plan — based on the real-life Operation Bernhard — is to destabilize the economies of those countries with large-scale infusions of fake pounds and dollars.
In exchange for their labor Sally and his colleagues are given privileges: food, civilian clothing, weekly showers, sheets and pillows on their beds. And this fragile good fortune provides “The Counterfeiters” with its ethical center of gravity. The questions Mr. Ruzowitzky poses are both stark and complicated. How much cooperation with evil is justified in the name of survival? How can the imperative to stay alive compete with the obligations to help others, and to oppose injustice?
Sally approaches these conundrums with the self-protective instincts of an outlaw. He does, however, adhere to the rudiments of a thief’s code of honor, surveying every new situation for possible risks and advantages and refusing, under any circumstances, to squeal on a comrade. Burger, a left-wing activist imprisoned for printing anti-Nazi leaflets, is the film’s designated man of principle. He decides to slow down Operation Bernhard by sabotaging the counterfeiting process, a delay that threatens the lives of his co-workers and brings him into conflict with everyone. He is the conflict that everyone grapples with, allowing the viewer to examine their own principles and think about what they find morally acceptable and what is not. The viewer has the advantage of knowing how the story turns out, a luxury not afforded the characters, which is an added twist to the audience experience.
“The Counterfeiters” is a swift and engaging movie, shifting between the grim realities of concentration camp life and what the world immediately before and after the war held for those who were free to enjoy it. It is not too difficult to watch and it is not too easy--an excellent take on the survival instinct in all of us.