Counterfeiter: How A Norwegian Jew Survived The Holocaust - Softcover

In 1945 Moritz Nachtstern sat down in his Oslo apartment and dictated the story of how he survived the Holocaust. He was one of 771 Jews deported from Norway during the German occupation of 1940–45; he was one of only thirty-four who came back. In Auschwitz he endured horrific conditions and came close to death several times before being selected for the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the isolated Block 19. Here, under the watchful eye of their SS guards, he and other skilled prisoners worked to produce perfect counterfeit British, and later American, banknotes for their captors. All were acutely aware that once they had served their purpose, they would not be allowed to live. Moritz Nachtstern captures the atmosphere inside Block 19, as portrayed in the Oscar-winning film The Counterfeiters, from his arrival in 1943 to the last chaotic days of the Second World War.

 

First published in Norwegian in 1949, this English edition is complemented by a foreword by his daughter Sidsel and essays by Norwegian historian Bjarte Bruland and Lawrence Malkin, author of Krueger’s Men: The Secret Nazi Counterfeit Plot and the Prisoners of Block 19.

In 1940, the Nazis set usecret project inmotion, Operation Bernhard. In 1942, men with certain skills were selected from the concentration, even from those on their way to the gas chambers. The men were transffered to the strictly isolated Block 19 in Sachsenhausen concentrationcamp The prisoners were presented with an normous task: producing counterfeit British bank notes to the value of hundreds of millions of pounds. The notes, considered some of the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, were to be dropped from planes over London to destabilize the British economy. Later in the war, the operation widened to include American dollar bills. One of the men plucked from Auschwitz was a norwegian Jew, Moritz Nachstern. Thi sis his shocking story from his arrest in Oslo, the journey to Germany, the horrors of the camps, and the impossibility of life in Block 19; the prisoners had to prooduce exquisite forgeries, but as slowly as they could, to ensure their own safety for as long as possible.

In 1940, the Nazis set usecret project inmotion, Operation Bernhard. In 1942, men with certain skills were selected from the concentration, even from those on their way to the gas chambers. The men were transffered to the strictly isolated Block 19 in Sachsenhausen concentrationcamp The prisoners were presented with an normous task: producing counterfeit British bank notes to the value of hundreds of millions of pounds. The notes, considered some of the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, were to be dropped from planes over London to destabilize the British economy. Later in the war, the operation widened to include American dollar bills. One of the men plucked from Auschwitz was a norwegian Jew, Moritz Nachstern. Thi sis his shocking story from his arrest in Oslo, the journey to Germany, the horrors of the camps, and the impossibility of life in Block 19; the prisoners had to prooduce exquisite forgeries, but as slowly as they could, to ensure their own safety for as long as possible.