Being There

I have always had mixed feelings about watching movies about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. On one hand, it’s an important subject, something that shouldn’t be forgotten. There are so many human stories that cannot be ignored (both examples of human triumph and the depths of human behavior). On the other hand, I usually walk out of the theatre feeling guilty or depressed. How can I continue on in my comfortable, easy life, as if, by watching a movie, I could understand what any of those people went through?

The Counterfeiters is a movie that plays on this sense of self-loathing, from the inside of a Nazi concentration camp, and from the viewpoint of a group of specially treated prisoners. Protagonist Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch is a master counterfeiter living the high life, only to be tracked down by a German special agent and arrested in the first few minutes of the film. He’s sent first to jail, then on to a concentration camp where his particular skills are to be put to use printing money for the Nazi war effort. Sally and a group of Jewish men with enough artistic and printing skill to be of help are treated to soft beds, music while they work, and a healthy dosage of food. They operate in a closed off block of the compound, separate from the “regular” prisoners.

The film is very well acted, from the friendly German officer who at once considers Sally his worthy opponent and a lowly Jew, to the idealistic young Burger, a man arrested for printing Communists pamphlets. And the tension between the prisoners’ relatively comfortable lifestyle and the reality of what’s happening in the camp and the war at large is constant. In one breath, the manager of the printing workshop tells Sally that he expects the Nazis will kill them all after the war is over, and exclaims about the nice printing presses they have available to do their work. They hear through the windows the “shoe-testing squad” marching around the grounds, “regular” prisoners who are marched to exhaustion, or even death.

Somehow Sally avoids either of the extreme perspectives that are presented in the attitudes of the people around him; he doesn’t agree they should revolt as Burger encourages, but neither does he choose to forget the atrocities that surround him on a daily basis. In the end, the group, led by Sally, manages to toe the line between sabotage and survival. The journey to the end of the war, and Sally’s liberation from the camp, is suspenseful, and extremely sad. But what Holocaust movie, ultimately, isn’t?

The Counterfeiters succeeds because it gives a new perspective not only into the largest counterfeiting operation of all time, but into the minds of concentration camp prisoners who struggled daily with their own self-loathing and guilt. And the most compelling message, one that I think strikes to the heart of the terrrible demoralization that was just one abuse of many found in concentration camps, comes early on out of the mouth of Sally. “I will not be ashamed that I am still alive.” 

If you can handle Holocaust movies (and subtitles) then I highly recommend this movie.