Counterfeiter
How A Norwegian Jew Survived The Holocaust
Published on 8. November 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-7627-7988-8 (ISBN)
Description
This is an enthralling personal account of the secret Nazi project, Operation Bernhard, devised to destabilize the British and, later, American economies by creating and putting into circulation millions of counterfeit banknotes. A team of typographers and printers was pulled out of the rows of prisoners on their way to the gas chambers and transferred to the strictly isolated Block 19 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There they were presented with the enormous task of producing almost perfect counterfeits to the value of hundreds of millions of pounds sterling. These notes were to be dropped from bombers over London, with the aim of causing financial chaos. When the time came the Luftwaffe's resources were fully committed in other campaigns and theaters but some of the currency was successfully used to fund operations in Germany's secret war.
Reviews / Votes
"Counterfeiter ... is an addition for both general-interest lending libraries strong in Holocaust studies and for World War II or Judaic history holdings. It tells of the Nazi secret project, Operation Bernhard, which used prisoners to produce counterfeit British bank nots--considered some of the most perfect counterfeits ever produced--which were to be dropped over London to destabilize the British economy. Author Moritz Nachstern was one of those picked for the program: his story survival and the project offers unusual gripping insights." -The Bookwatch"As far as Malkin is concerned, it's the 'most reliable and psychologically acute' of the half-dozen memoirs written by participants of the counterfeiting operation. 'To me, it's barely a Holocaust story,'said Malkin of the counterfeiting saga. "It's a story of survival and deception in wartime."-Jon Kalish, The Forward"Arresting from start to finish, this harrowing memoir is full of compassion, pain and strength that illuminates from the inside a little-known episode in the Nazi effort." --Publisher's Weekly, Starred ReviewMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Old Saybrook
United States
Publishing group
Rowman & Littlefield
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
331 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7627-7988-8 (9780762779888)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Moritz Nachtstern (1902-1969), was a Norwegian-Jewish typographer deported from Oslo in 1942. This is his story, as told to his wife and written down by her, then edited by journalist Ragnar Arntzen. It was originally published in Norwegian in 1949. It covers the three terrible years from his arrest and transportation to Germany, through the horrors of life in Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen to his escape in the last chaotic and terrifying days as the liberating American forces approached. At the center of this personal tale of courage and endurance is Nachtstern's absorbing description of how, in order to survive, he participated in the creation of exquisite forgeries, while working as slowly as possible, both to frustrate the Nazi plan and to ensure that he and his fellow forgers never became expendable.
Content
Foreword by Sidsel Nachstern: It Cannot Be Erased: Introduction by Bjarte Bruland: The Norwegian Will Die Tonight Introduction by Lawrence Malkin, Author of Kreuger's Men: The Secret Counterfeit Plot and the Prisoners of Block 19 Counterfeiter Two Interviews with Moritz Nachastern Glossary