Painting by Salomon Smolianoff. It shows a small village with church in the mountains. Artist signature and dated "1942". Painted on solid cardboard. Lettered to the reverse. Period time framed.

Salomon Smolianoff was born on 1899 in Ukraine. He was a Jewish counterfeiter and Holocaust survivor involved in Operation Bernhard. He traveled across Europe and finally came to Berlin. In 1936 he was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in prison "Zuchthaus". After serving of his sentence, however, he came to the Concentration Camp Mauthausen. In 1944 transferred to Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen to fake English bank notes for Operation Bernhard.

The Operation Bernhard is considered as the largest counterfeiting operation in history. Salomon Smolianoff was liberated by the US Army on 6. May 1945 and then emigrated to South America. He died in 1976 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The are lot of informations of Salomon Smolianoff and Operation Bernhard available on the internet. The story of the counterfeiter is also nice to see in the German movie "Die Fälscher", issued 2007.

Size: 37x32.5 cm.