{"id":536,"date":"2008-09-08T10:13:13","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T18:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/?p=536"},"modified":"2008-09-08T10:13:13","modified_gmt":"2008-09-08T18:13:13","slug":"survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2008\/09\/survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Survival&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/thecounterfeiters.gif\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-540\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/thecounterfeiters-300x200.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For two weeks during the summer, I took a course on American slavery and the Holocaust.\u00a0 Talk about summer time fun time!\u00a0 From the start, we sought to avoid \u201cinvidious comparisons\u201d between the two events that would eternally debate who suffered more or which event was more horrific.\u00a0 Instead, we looked at issues of race, power, economics, and evil in an attempt to understand how events like these could happen and how ordinary people could collude with such extraordinarily evil circumstances. The question of how ordinary people could survive such horrific circumstances, though never explicitly raised for discussion, inevitably followed readings about the Middle Passage or any number of Nazi death camps.\u00a0 To illustrate the lasting psychological damage that these events exacted on their victims, we watched two films, Sidney Lumet\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0059575\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>The Pawnbroker<\/em><\/a> and Jonathan Demme\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0120603\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Beloved<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Recently, I encountered another, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0813547\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>The Counterfeiters<\/em><\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Directed by Stephan Ruzowitzki and based on Adolf Burger\u2019s book of the same name, <em>The Counterfeiters<\/em> focuses on a small slice of the Holocaust and World War II, the little-known \u201cOperation Bernhard.\u201d\u00a0 This was a Nazi attempt to produce counterfeit British pounds and American dollars to strengthen their military machine and to weaken and eventually collapse both economies.\u00a0 To that end, Nazi officials enlisted Jewish captives renowned for their printing, or forgery, skills to run a print shop in one of the concentration camps.\u00a0 Their star counterfeiter is Salomon \u201cSally\u201d Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics).\u00a0 Truly skilled at his \u201cprofession,\u201d\u00a0 Sally is happy to move from forced manual labor to the comparatively comfortable surroundings of the print shop.\u00a0 Soon, however, he is confronted with two painful realities:\u00a0 he is directly helping fund the Nazi war effort while his Jewish counterparts are suffering and dying just outside the print shop\u2019s walls.<\/p>\n<p>I can think of few more difficult events to re-enact and film than the Holocaust.\u00a0 By focusing on such a small portion of the event, director Ruzowitzki is not forced to try to capture the enormity of the suffering.\u00a0 However, suffering is ever-present, if not always seen.\u00a0 For one, we constantly hear the shouts of Nazi soldiers and the screams and pleas of Jewish prisoners.\u00a0 A single pistol shot, the execution of another Jew, constantly startles both Sally and the viewers.\u00a0 Ruzowitzki and Burger are up to something different here.\u00a0 Survival, rather than suffering, is the film\u2019s main focus.\u00a0 <em>The Counterfeiters <\/em>is a story of one man\u2019s attempt to survive at any cost, with all the ethical implications that that determination entails.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/counterfeiters460.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft alignnone size-medium wp-image-542\" style=\"margin: 10px;float: left\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/counterfeiters460-300x195.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\"><\/a>In our summer school course, one of the professors argued that we like to romanticize a hypothetical past.\u00a0 Regarding slavery or the Holocaust, we might say, \u201cI would have never done this or that.\u201d\u00a0 The fact of the matter is that we can never truly know what we would have done.\u00a0 Rather, a more fruitful approach would be to examine how we participate in oppressive structures today.\u00a0 I do not believe that this means that we cannot speak ethically regarding Sally\u2019s actions for example.\u00a0 On the other hand, we cannot be overly judgmental.\u00a0 Ruzowitzki does a great job of laying out this portion of Sally\u2019s life before us, and Markovics does a great job of portraying a man who will survive at any cost.\u00a0 Sally is \u201cthankful\u201d to have the \u201cjob,\u201d but he does realize that others around him suffer in more physically demanding ways.\u00a0 Yet in performing his job well, he helps preserve the lives of his counterfeiting co-workers.\u00a0 His abandonment of the project would quickly lead to greater persecution for those, physically, closest to him.<\/p>\n<p>Ruzowitzki and Burger do not leave us with one response to this dilemma.\u00a0 Another character, Adolf Burger (August Diehl), simply cannot justify or live with supporting the Nazi effort.\u00a0 He consistently thwarts the counterfeiting efforts by inserting disruptive irregularities into the production process that result in flawed bills and delays.\u00a0 Sally must cover up for him to save both of their lives, telling him, \u201cOnly by surviving can we defeat them.\u201d\u00a0 Adolf\u2019s response, if perhaps more courageous, is just as valid as Sally\u2019s and is one that the director follows throughout.\u00a0 Sally tells Adolf, \u201cNobody\u2019s prepared to die for a principle.\u201d\u00a0 To which Adolf responds, \u201cThat\u2019s why the Nazi system works.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Participation and resistance are two broad ways of looking at the responses to the Nazi oppression thus far.\u00a0 Various forms of escape are others.\u00a0 One of the counterfeiters kills himself after he sees that the war is over.\u00a0 The prisoners confined outside the counterfeiting buildings storm in and almost murder the counterfeiters believing they are Nazi workers.\u00a0 They only step down when they see their number tattoos.\u00a0 Upon seeing the suicide victim, another counterfeiter exclaims, \u201cI told him he only had to survive until it was over.\u201d\u00a0 What an unfortunately short-sighted assessment.\u00a0 Sally and the rest of the survivors will be surviving the Holocaust every day for the rest of their lives.\u00a0 Perhaps this counterfeiter could not survive the prospect of survival.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/2007_the_counterfeiters_003.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft alignnone size-medium wp-image-541\" style=\"margin: 10px;float: left\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/357\/2008\/09\/2007_the_counterfeiters_003-300x166.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"166\"><\/a><em>The Counterfeiters<\/em> is shot in grainy footage that gives the film both a gritty, yet \u201ccool\u201d feel.\u00a0 Ruzowitzki throws in occasional scenes of violence and humiliation to counter this look and to remind us of the horrors of the Holocaust.\u00a0 The film begins with Sally living it up in a casino in Monte Carlo after his liberation.\u00a0 This makes a strong contrast to the concentration camps to which Ruzowitzki quickly flashes back.\u00a0 At the end of the film, Sally sits on a beach with a nameless woman, no doubt reflecting on his experiences.\u00a0 He has just blown all of his money at the casino, but we know that he can make more.\u00a0 The woman does not know this, however, and she tries to comfort him:\u00a0 \u201cYou had bad luck.\u00a0 So much money\u2026so much money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Counterfeiters <\/em>(98 mins) is available on DVD and is rated R for strong violence, brief nudity and sexuality, and language.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For two weeks during the summer, I took a course on American slavery and the Holocaust.\u00a0 Talk about summer time fun time!\u00a0 From the start, we sought to avoid \u201cinvidious comparisons\u201d between the two events that would eternally debate who suffered more or which event was more horrific.\u00a0 Instead, we looked at issues of race, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Survival...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For two weeks during the summer, I took a course on American slavery and the Holocaust.\u00a0 Talk about summer time fun time!\u00a0 From the start, we sought to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2008\/09\/survival\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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