The Counterfeiters

War, Crime
USA  /  English

Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) is a successful forger, mainly dabbling in laundered money and falsified currency. He lives in Nazi Germany during WWII, and is arrested and imprisoned in a hard labor camp, and then a concentration camp. In an act of self-preservation, he uses his artistic skills once reserved for forgery to paint portraits of the guards and their families. Salomon becomes very well-known for his art, and eventually he is transferred to a new camp reserved for prisoners with special skills. His fellow detainees have backgrounds in bank managing art, and printing, and the Nazis have assigned them to the task of counterfeiting money to be used to fund the war. Although he is relieved to have found a way to protect himself, he begins to worry about the war they are perpetuating, especially after his co-counterfeiters decide they do not want to support the German war effort and plan to sabotage the operation.