Event Details
Join historian Jeremy A. Stern, Ph.D., for a gripping online talk about Operation Bernhard, the Nazi scheme to counterfeit British bank notes during World War II using Jewish prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Forced to operate a makeshift forgery factory for the SS, the captive prisoners faced an impossible dilemma: produce convincing counterfeits and risk death upon completion, or stall and risk the Nazis abandoning and eliminating the operation entirely. Their astonishingly close copies of British currency, with only subtle errors, kept them alive for a time. But their ultimate fate hung on the decisions of the SS commander as the German war effort crumbled.
The talk is presented by Jeremy A. Stern, Ph.D., an independent historian, writer, and history educator who has long been drawn to this story and who owns an original forged Bernhard note, a rare physical artifact from the Nazi camps.
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT / 1:00 – 2:00 PM CT / 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET
Location: Online via Zoom
Cost: $18 early bird (by October 25) | $25 regular