Focus Paper 5

Finn McNally
Focus Paper 5
The Counterfeiters

The Counterfeiters is the gripping story of professional counterfeiter Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch getting arrested by the Nazis and forced to make counterfeit British and American currency in order to help the Nazi war effort. It is more so however a story of moral dilemma and personal choice. How much would you sacrifice to stay alive?
All the characters in this film do behave in believable ways. The way that Sally behaves is believable because he is doing whatever he can to stay alive and try to keep an upper hand throughout his imprisonment. He is smart and able to use his skills to gain an advantage over the other prisoners. Most of the prisoners all follow the orders of the Nazi guards and Superintendent Herzog. This is believable because the prisoners, even though they know they are doing the wrong thing for the war, just want to stay alive and not be killed by the Nazis. The only one who publicly objects and refuses to help this counterfeiting is Adolf Burger who would rather be a martyr for the right side than to help the Axis in World War Two. This is also believable because he explains that before he was arrested he was opposing the Nazis and standing up for what he believes in.
One scene at the heart of the film is when the inmate with TB is shot in the head while everyone is enjoying Carnival. This scene is when Sally sees how corrupt and untrustworthy Herzog truly is. Herzog had broken the deal with Sally and for that Sally now has more hatred towards him and now has more motivation to stall and not finish the bill for the Nazis. At the end of the film the world is definitely more orderly. The war has ended and in the final scenes you see Sally living his grandeur life that he had before the war.
The whole film is filled with hidden agendas. The whole agenda is to finish completing the counterfeit bills and stay alive. The hidden agenda for the prisoners is to stall the completion of the dollar and not help the war effort but stay alive at the same time.
The film can be associated with many films and books pertaining to World War Two and the Concentration camps. It reminds me mostly of Night by Eli Wiesel. It showed a lot of insight into the concentration camps and introduced an element that I had never known about before seeing this film. The fact that this was based on a true story was shocking to me and made the film that much more interesting. The movie was very depressing at times but overall I liked it because the actors and the story did a fantastic job of displaying the emotions and actions of the inner turmoil the counterfeiters struggled with.