Dear Friend,

 

“The Counterfeiters” is a true story of a spectacular effort by the Nazis to force Jews to print counterfeit money in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in order to flood the economy and fill their empty war coffers.

 

The film was shown at the Berlin Film Festival to great acclaim and nominated for an Academy Award this year. I can not impress upon you enough how amazing this true story is. Please come and see for yourself.

 

xoxo

Peggy

 

 

 

Sony Pictures Classics

Michael Barker   Tom Bernard

 

CO-PRESIDENT                     CO-PRESIDENT

 

cordially invite you to join

Stefan Ruzowitzky   Karl Markovics  

 

at a special screening of

THE COUNTERFEITERS

80th Academy Award Nomination

Best Foreign Language Film

 

starring

Karl Markovics   August Diehl    Devid Striesow

 

written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky   

 

Thursday, February 7, 2007

 

6:30 p.m. cocktails

7:00 p.m. screening   9:00 p.m. dinner

 

SONY SCREENING ROOM

550 Madison Avenue   between 55^th and 56^th Streets

 

peggy@peggysiegal.com or 212-935-6700

this invitation is non-transferable

 

The true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian. After getting arrested and sent to a concentration camp in 1944, he agrees to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeit operation set up to help finance the war effort.

 

It was the biggest counterfeit money scam of all times. Over 130 million pound sterling were printed, under conditions that couldn't have been more tragic or spectacular. During the last years of the war, as the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiter’s workshop. "Operation Bernhard" was born. Prisoners were brought to Sachsenhausen from other camps to implement the plan: professional printers, fastidious bank officials and simple craftsmen all became members of the top-secret counterfeiter commando. They had the choice: if they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive, as first-class prisoners in a "golden cage" with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For THE COUNTERFEITERS, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well...