Salomon Smolianoff (March 1899 – 1976) was a Jewish counterfeiter and

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor involved in

Operation Bernhard Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War. The first phase was run from early ...

. In the 2007 film ''The Counterfeiters'' based on Adolf Burger's memoirs (which film received a foreign-language Oscar for

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in 2008), the character is renamed Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch. The character is played by Karl Markovics, an Austrian stage and television actor.

Life

Salomon Smolianoff was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; uk, Кременчу́к, Kremenchuk ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnipro River. The city serves as the administrative center of the Kremenchuk Raion (district) in Poltava Oblast (pr ...

, Ukraine. He studied painting in the Russian Empire, but he had to leave the country in 1922 because his parents were on the wrong side of the

Soviet Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

. He went across Europe, was married in Italy, and finally tried to start a new life in Germany, where he met a counterfeiter and decided to become one himself. He was wanted by several European police forces prior to the outbreak of World War II. In 1939 Bernhard Krüger, future SS

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

head of

, put him behind bars. He was sent to the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

, and made himself useful to the S.S. guards as a portraitist and artist. He was selected for

, transferred to the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...

in 1944, and eventually to the Ebensee site of the Mauthausen camp network, 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. All traces of the master counterfeiter Smolianoff were lost after his liberation. He was soon on international "Wanted" lists as a counterfeiter, but he is also believed to have forged emigration papers for Jews trying to go to Palestine. He then emigrated to

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, where he counterfeited Russian icons. The Uruguayan police apparently caught on, and Smolianoff moved to Brazil in the 1950s, where he went into the toy business. Smolianoff died in

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the twelfth most populous city in the country and the center of Brazil's fif ...

, in the south of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, in 1976. He allegedly spent his last years painting portraits and creating toys.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smolianoff, Salomon 1899 births 1976 deaths People from Kremenchuk People from Poltava Governorate Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Brazil Jews from the Russian Empire Brazilian Jews Brazilian people of Russian-Jewish descent Brazilian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Mauthausen concentration camp survivors Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors Russian counterfeiters Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany Ukrainian counterfeiters