Salomon Smolianoff
1897–1976 · Ukrainian-Brazilian counterfeiter and painter, Holocaust survivor
Salomon Smolianoff (Kremenchuk, 1897 – Porto Alegre, 1976) was a Jewish counterfeiter and Holocaust survivor linked to Operation Bernhard, the Nazi programme to forge British pounds and US dollars. His name is mostly associated with forgery, but he trained as a painter, and sources credit him with portraits and copies of Russian icons.
Born into a Jewish family in Kremenchuk, he studied painting in the Russian Empire but had to leave in 1922, as his parents were on the wrong side of the Soviet Revolution. He travelled across Europe, married in Italy and tried to start over in Germany, where he met a counterfeiter and turned to forgery himself. Before World War II several European police forces wanted him. In 1939 Bernhard Krüger, later head of Operation Bernhard, had him jailed, and he was sent to Mauthausen, where he won the favour of SS guards by painting their portraits. He was selected for the operation, moved to Sachsenhausen in 1944 and finally to Ebensee, where the US Army liberated him in May 1945.
After his liberation his trail goes cold. He is believed to have forged emigration papers for Jews heading to Palestine. He then settled in Uruguay, where he painted fake Russian icons, and in the 1950s moved to Brazil, where he worked in the toy business. He died in Porto Alegre in 1976. His life inspired the character Sally Sorowitsch in the 2007 film The Counterfeiters, based on Adolf Burger's memoirs.