Adolfo Kaminsky

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Adolfo Kaminsky
Born(1925-10-01)1 October 1925
Forger
of documents

Adolfo Kaminsky (or Adolphe; 1 October 1925 – 9 January 2023) was an Argentine-born member of the

draft dodgers during the Algerian War (1954–62). He forged papers for thirty years for different activist groups, mainly national liberation fronts, without ever requiring payment.[1][2]

Early life

Kaminsky was born in Argentina to a Jewish Russian family, the son of Anna (Kinoël) and Salomon Kaminsky.[3][4] In 1932, when Kaminsky was seven years old, he moved with his family to Paris,[2] where his father worked as a tailor. From Paris, the family moved in 1938 to Vire, Calvados, where his uncle was established.[5] Adolfo worked in a dye shop[2] and became fascinated by the chemistry of colourants. At that time, he bought a treatise by Marcellin Berthelot at a flea market.[5] He later created his own laboratory (lab) in his uncle's house and worked in a butter factory as an assistant to a chemist who taught him the basics.[5]

World War II

In 1940, after the

Todt Organization, loaded with material for the Atlantic Wall, transited. He sent messages to London about these trains. However, in 1943 his family was interned in the camp of Drancy, as a prelude to deportation.[6] Thanks to support from the Consul of Argentina, which had broken diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany under pressure from the United States, they were freed on 22 December 1943,[7] and moved on to Paris.[5]

Adolfo then worked in an underground lab in Paris (17, rue des St Pères) where he spent the rest of

Waterman blue ink stains from papers. Adolfo suggested they use lactic acid, and thereafter joined the group, finally becoming responsible for the chemical forgery lab.[6] They notably had to respond to the challenge of the invention of the watermark. Kaminsky also quickly learned photogravure under a false pretext, and set up a new lab in order to create "real-false" documents. The Kaminsky Lab became the main producer of false IDs for northern France and Benelux
, although ties with other clandestine groups were discontinued, each group working as a cell.

Kaminsky used to say: "Stay awake. As long as possible. Struggle against sleep. The calculation is easy. In one hour, I make 30 false papers. If I sleep one hour, 30 people will die."[9] Over the course of the war, Kaminsky created documents that saved the lives of 14,000 Jews.[10][2]

After the

spies sent behind enemy lines in order to investigate and detect the location of concentration camps
before their dismantlement by the Nazis.

Post-war

After the

Lehi as they waged a violent campaign against the British. After the foundation of Israel, he stopped doing this work, refusing to support a "religious state" that endorsed the secular-religious status quo and that included an important State role for the Chief Rabbinate of Israel
; he became a photographer.

Kaminsky resigned from the French military at the beginning of the

draft dodgers by setting up a clandestine lab in Paris. He collaborated with the Jeanson network and Henri Curiel during the Algerian War. In 1962 he produced a cubic meter of 100 Franc notes (estimated value 100 million Francs) to help the FLN fight by destabilising the French currency and thus the economy. When the cease-fire was declared in March 1962, the notes were burned in a huge bonfire. Kaminsky later said, "It never entered our heads to keep the notes. Money always leads to problems."[11]

Starting in 1963, he assisted various leftist movements from Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela); Africa (Angola, Guinea-Bissau, South Africa) and from Portugal (then under Salazar's dictatorship) and Francoist Spain.[1] He trained many people in forgery in order to support them in their respective struggles. He always worked for free in order to be able to refuse a job if he did not support the ideas—the only exception being during World War II, when the lab took up all his expenses in order to allow him to dedicate himself full-time to the job.

Kaminsky also supported the Greeks struggling against the

draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. In 1968, he made a false ID for Daniel Cohn-Bendit to allow him to speak at a meeting—he would later say: "It was certainly the least useful [forgery], but it was a way of showing that there is nothing more porous than borders and that ideas transcend them".[7]

Kaminsky made his last false ID in 1971. He gave up his forgery career after he was asked to forge South African passports for anti-apartheid guerrillas in South Africa, but soon realized it was an entrapment operation to incriminate him. He never found out who tried to incriminate him, though speculation was that the secret police of the apartheid regime were behind it.

Kaminsky subsequently lived for ten years in Algiers, married a Tuareg woman, and had five children, including hip-hop singer Rocé.[12]

In 1982, he moved to France with a temporary residence permit.

French in 1992.[7]

Kaminsky died on 9 January 2023, at the age of 97.[13]

Awards

Adolfo Kaminsky was awarded the

Croix du combattant volontaire de la Résistance, and the Médaille de Vermeil de la ville de Paris for his acts during the Resistance.[14]

In the media

Jacques Falck made a documentary film about his life, Forging Identity.[15] Adolfo's daughter Sarah, born in 1979, is an actress and writer who wrote a biography of her father, Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2009), which has been translated into Spanish and German,[16] and also into English in 2016 as Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life.[17]

A short film about Kaminsky entitled The Forger accompanied an online New York Times article in October 2016.[18] The Travel Channel's show Mysteries at the Museum featured a segment on Kaminsky in its 12 October 2017 episode. On 29 October 2017, 60 Minutes told his story.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire - Là-bas si j'y suis". la-bas.org. 16 March 2010. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Hendler, Sefy. "Con Artist: The True Story of a Master Forger". Haaretz. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  3. ^ Chouaki, Yasmine (17 December 2015). "En sol majeur". Radio France International. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  4. ^ Berger, Joseph (9 January 2023). "Adolfo Kaminsky Dies at 97; His Forgeries Saved Thousands of Jews". The New York Times.
  5. ^
    Ouest France
    , 28 October 2009
  6. ^ a b Druckerman, Pamela (2 October 2016). "If I Sleep for an Hour, 30 People Will Die". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  7. ^
    Ouest France
    , 28 October 2009
  8. ^ Reinhardt, Nora (25 August 2011). "The Hidden Life of the Humanitarian Forger". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  9. ^ Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire Archived 12 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Libération, 5 February 2010
  10. ^ Maloney, Jennifer (31 August 2016). "New Books Trace the Holocaust's Legacy". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 October 2016.(subscription required)
  11. ^ Reinhardt, Nora (22 August 2011). Widerstand: Humanistisches Handwerk. Der Spiegel. spiegel.de. (PDF version; Vol.34, pp 125-127).
  12. ^ "Adolfo Kaminsky, French Resistance fighter and photographer, has died". Le Monde.fr. 11 January 2023.
  13. ^ "Adolfo Kaminsky, la mort après une vie héroïque de faux et de photos". Libération. 9 January 2023. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  14. ^ Gersony, Marina (December 2011). "Adolfo Kaminsky: Forger for the Good" (PDF). East (39): 155. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  15. ^ "Icarus Films: Forging Identity". icarusfilms.com. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  16. ^ "Formats and Editions". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  17. ^ English translation.
  18. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 3 August 2023.

External links
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