Adolf Burger

Infobox Person
name = Adolf Burger


image_size =
caption = Paris, January 2008
birth_name =
birth_date = 12 August 1917
birth_place = Veľká Lomnica, Habsburg Monarchy (now Slovakia)
death_date =
death_place =
death_cause =
resting_place =
resting_place_coordinates =
residence = Prague - Spořilov
nationality = Slovak (ethnic)Adolf Burger identified as Slovak in an interview for the newspaper "Sme", 28 Feb. 2008; he said he felt to be "neither a Czech, nor a Slovak, nor a Jew" in an interview for the newspaper "Mladá fronta Dnes", 23 Feb. 2008.] After her interview with Adolf Burger, Pauline McLeod characterized him as a "proud Jewish Slovak" in "My Hell as a Forger for the SS." "The Sunday Express", 7 Oct. 2007.]
Czech Republic (citizen)
other_names =
known_for = memoirs on Operation Bernhard
education = typography apprenticeship
employer =
occupation = typographer
Nazi prisoner counterfeiter
printing plant director
title =
salary =
networth =
height =
weight =
term =
predecessor =
successor =
party = Communist Party
boards =
religion = Jewish [Adolf Burger said in several interviews that he had identified as Jewish to the authorities in the early 1950s, e.g., "On-line rozhovor: Padělal pro Hitlera. Přežil Birkenau." "Aktualne.cz", 13 Aug. 2007.] [Adolf Burger implied that he was not religious in a video interview linked in "Muž, který přežil koncentrační tábory, odpovídal čtenářům Novinek." "Novinky.cz", 1 Feb. 2008.]
spouse = Gizela (30 May 1920-Dec. 1942)
Anna (d. ca. 2004)
partner =
children = three
parents =
relatives =


website =
footnotes =

Adolf Burger (born 12 August 1917) is a Jewish Slovak typographer, memoir writer, and Holocaust survivor involved in Operation Bernhard. The film "The Counterfeiters" based on his memoirs received a foreign-language Oscar for Austria in 2008.

Life

Adolf Burger was born to a Jewish family in Veľká Lomnica, then a mostly German [Július Gréb (1926) "Geschichte der Gemeinde Grosslomnitz." Kežmarok.] village in the High Tatras region, Spiš County. His father died when Adolf was four, after which his mother, four siblings, and two grandparents moved to the nearby town of Poprad. He entered apprenticeship with a local printer and typesetter at the age of fourteen. His mother remarried a Christian, which gave her the status of a non-Jew in Slovakia after the introduction of anti-Jewish laws by the beginning of World War II. The organization Hashomer Hatzair helped Burger's siblings to emigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine [Alice Horáčková, "Adolf Burger: Život plný zvratů." "Mladá fronta Dnes," 23 Feb. 2008.] before Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews materialized.

Adolf Burger did not join them and took up a job in a printing house in Bratislava in 1938. During World War II, before Slovakia started to deport its Jewish citizens to German concentration camps in 1942, he became one of those who received government-sponsored waivers from deportations as someone with skills indispensable for the country's economy. [Adolf Burger (1997) "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Fälscheraktion der Geschichte." Berlin.] At the request of resistance members, Burger began to print false baptismal certificates for Jews scheduled for deportation, which stated that they had been Roman Catholic from birth, or baptized so before World War II. Slovaks with such documents were not deported. [Adolf Burger in the interview "Der Hölle entkommen – Adolf Burger erzählt das Unbeschreibbar." "Radio.cz", 26 Dec. 2007.]

Burger's activity was discovered. He was arrested on 11 August 1942, seven months after his marriage to his wife Gizela. Following his arrest, the couple were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp where Gizela was killed later that year. [Sylva and Oskar Krejčí (1945) "Číslo 64401 mluví." Prague.] He was assigned to work at the new arrivals selection ramps.

After eighteen months at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Burger's training came through for him once more. He was selected for Operation Bernhard, transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in April 1944, and eventually to the Ebensee site of the Mauthausen camp network [Adolf Burger (1989) "Akcia Bernhard: Obchod s miliónmi." Bratislava.] where he was liberated by the US Army on 6 May 1945. [Max Garcia, "Befreiung des KZ-Nebenlagers Ebensee: Neue historische Details." "Zeitschrift des Zeitgeschichtemuseums Ebensee," 1998.]

Upon returning to the place of his mother's residence at Poprad, Burger found out that, although exempt from deportation by Slovak law, she and his Christian stepfather had only months earlier been deported and killed. The application of the law changed when the German military took control of his country after the failed uprising of 1944. [Adolf Burger (1997) "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Fälscheraktion der Geschichte." Berlin, pp. 123 and 243.] He then settled in Prague where he reconfirmed his membership in the Communist Party, which he joined in 1933, was made director of a consortium of printing houses, remarried, and had three children. He was harassed by the secret police during the Communist purges of the early 1950s. [Adolf Burger in the interview "Padělal pro Hitlera. Přežil Birkenau." "Aktualne.cz", 13 Aug. 2007.] He later worked in a shipyard, headed a department in Prague's municipal services, and became director of the city-sponsored taxicabs. [Petr Kovařík, "Adolf Burger: Padělal jsem peníze pro Hitlera." "Mladá fronta Dnes", 11 Sept. 2007.]

Operation Bernhard Memoirs

Burger's manuscripts were written in a mixture of Czech and Slovak, and adjusted by editors for publication in standard Czech. Versions of his memoirs were reedited and republished several times in a variety of languages (including German, Hungarian, Persian, and Slovak) and under modified titles.

His experiences as a currency counterfeiter working on a secret Nazi project in a German concentration camp were first made public in 1945 under the title "Number 64401 Speaks" ("Číslo 64401 mluví") written by Sylva and Oskar Krejčí, who based their book on Burger's narrated recollections and included the photographs of the former prisoners he was able to take immediately after liberation. Adolf Burger began to rewrite his memoirs himself in the 1970s. He explained his motivation in an interview:

When I was liberated by the Americans I went home very calmly, never had a bad dream [...] For years I was silent, I didn't want to speak about this any more. It was only when the neo-Nazis started with their lies about Auschwitz that I began [...] . [Stephen Dalton, "How I Faked It for the Nazis." "The Times", 4 Oct. 2007.]

His memoirs were published in 1983 as "The Commando of Counterfeiters" (simultaneously in Czech "Komando padělatelů" and in a Slovak translation "Komando falšovateľov"), which was translated and published in East Germany in the same year under the now-familiar title "The Devil's Workshop" ("Des Teufels Werkstatt: Im Fälscherkommando des KZ Sachsenhausen").

Screenwriter and director Stefan Ruzowitzky adapted the book as the screenplay for his Austrian-German co-production "The Counterfeiters" that received a foreign-language Oscar in 2008. Burger checked every draft of the screenplay. [Stefan Ruzowitzky in an interview for "TimeOut, London", 10-16 Oct. 2007.] Adolf Burger is played by the German actor August Diehl. He is one of only two prisoner characters in the film that has an authentic historical name and is not synthesized from several real-life prisoners involved in Operation Bernhard. [Stefan Ruzowitzky in an interview with [http://www.greencine.com/central/stefanruzowitzky Michael Guillén, "Stefan Ruzowitzky: 'Sometimes Right, Sometimes Wrong.'" "GreenCine.com", 22 Feb. 2008.] ] (the other is the opera singer, Isaak Plappler who also was still living when the film was made - see director's commentary on the DVD)

Bibliography

* 1945 flagicon|CZE Czech, written by Sylva and Oskar Krejčí, "Číslo 64401 mluví." Prague.
* 1983 flagicon|CZE Czech, "Komando padělatelů." Prague.
* 1983 flagicon|SVK Slovak, "Komando falšovateľov." Prague.
* 1983 flagicon|GDR German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Im Fälscherkommando des KZ Sachsenhausen." (East) Berlin.
* 1985 flagicon|GDR German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Im Fälscherkommando des KZ Sachsenhausen." (East) Berlin.
* 1986 flagicon|HUN Hungarian, "A hamisító csoport." Budapest.
* 1987 flagicon|GDR German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Im Fälscherkommando des KZ Sachsenhausen." (East) Berlin.
* 1989 flagicon|SVK Slovak, "Akcia Bernhard: Obchod s miliónmi." Bratislava.
* 1989 flagicon|GDR German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Im Fälscherkommando des KZ Sachsenhausen." (East) Berlin.
* 1991 flagicon|CZE Czech, "Ďáblova dílna: V padělatelském komandu koncentračního tábora Sachsenhausen." Prague.
* 1992 flagicon|GER German, "Unternehmen Bernhard: Die Fälscherwerkstatt im KZ Sachsenhausen." Berlin.
* 1997 flagicon|GER German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Geldfälscheraktion der Weltgeschichte." Berlin.
* 1997 flagicon|IRN Persian, "Kārgāh-i ahrīmanī." Teheran.
* 1999 flagicon|GER German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Geldfälscheraktion der Weltgeschichte." Berlin.
* 2005 flagicon|GER German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Geldfälscheraktion der Weltgeschichte." Teetz.
* 2007 flagicon|GER German, "Des Teufels Werkstatt: Die grösste Geldfälscheraktion der Weltgeschichte." Munich.
* 2007 flagicon|CZE Czech, "Ďáblova dílna: Největší padělatelská operace všech dob." Prague.

References