RIP Adolfo Kaminsky, 97, whose forgeries saved thousands of Jewish lives

[Tanuki]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/world/europe/adolfo-kaminsky-dead.html

"Adolfo Kaminsky’s talent was as banal as could be: He knew how to remove supposedly indelible blue ink from paper. But it was a skill that helped save the lives of thousands of Jews in France during World War II.

He had learned how to remove such stains as a teenager working for a clothes dyer and dry cleaner in his Normandy town. When he joined the anti-Nazi resistance at 18, his expertise enabled him to erase Jewish-sounding names like Abraham or Isaac that were officially inscribed on French ID and food ration cards, and substitute them with typically gentile-sounding ones.

The forged documents allowed Jewish children, their parents and others to escape deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and in many cases to flee Nazi-occupied territory for safe havens.

At one point, Mr. Kaminsky was asked to produce 900 birth and baptismal certificates and ration cards for 300 Jewish children in institutional homes who were about to be rounded up. The aim was to deceive the Germans until the children could be smuggled out to rural families or convents, or to Switzerland and Spain. He was given three days to finish the assignment.

He toiled for two straight days, forcing himself to stay awake by telling himself: “In one hour I can make 30 blank documents. If I sleep for an hour 30 people will die.”

Mr. Kaminsky died on Monday at his home in Paris, his daughter Sarah Kaminsky said. He was 97.

His story reads like something out of a spy novel."....(more)

[Ohio Joe]

1. RIP

[mercuryblues]

2. I'd like to think that when he got to heaven there were thousands of those he saved

greeting him.

[SheltieLover]

4. Having worked in hospice, I'm pretty sure this is the case.

😉

[housecat]

9. Comforting thought, and I hope you are right. Thanks

[SheltieLover]

11. Yw!

[calimary]

12. I bet they did. Including the spirits of their parents and extended families.

[eggplant]

23. Jews don't believe in the afterlife.

That's why we say "May [their] memory be a blessing" rather than "Rest in peace". The first is meant to be heard by the living, and the second by the dead.

[GreenWave]

3. Tremendous human being.

The world needs a lot more of them.

[SheltieLover]

5. RIP, Hero!

[Joinfortmill]

6. A hero who in a sense saved generations of people.

[mahina]

7. May his memory be a thousand blessings

And it already is. Aloha e Mr Kaminsky.

[Tanuki]

8. After the war, he turned his talents to assisting the Algerian Liberation movement.

https://www.ft.com/content/3adef2df-b52f-4387-929d-f4ee8a91bd1d

[FakeNoose]

10. He would have been only 20 years old when the war ended

What amazing courage and determination for such a young man. He was a special kind of hero.

Well done Mr. Kaminsky! You've earned your reward in heaven.

[Paladin]

13. God bless him and his good works. (nt)

[Karadeniz]

14. I hadn't heard his story... thanks for posting!

[Hortensis]

15. "All humans are equal, whatever their origins, their beliefs, their skin color.

There are no superiors, no inferiors. That is not acceptable for me.” Kaminsky 2016

Thanks, Tanuki.

[Hekate]

16. What an incredible man

[Permanut]

17. We will remember Adolfo Kaminsky..

We use the word "hero" a lot, but this man raised the bar by a mile.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

18. We need more people like him.

Instead we keep getting more RWNJs. I'm an atheist, but if I weren't, I'd become one now.

[KS Toronado]

19. Wonder if Steven Spielberg

will do a movie of his WWII activities? Be right up Spielberg's alley after Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List
one of my all time favorite movies. Come on Steve get with it!

[mucifer]

21. I hope he did a recorded interview with Kaminsky for his "Shoah" project:

You can watch more than 3,000 testimony videos from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides. Testimony videos not viewable in the VHA Online can be viewed onsite at many institutions around the world. Find an access site near you , where all testimony videos can be viewed.

https://sfi.usc.edu/full-length-testimonies

But he really wasn't a survivor or a witness so he might not be recorded.

[KS Toronado]

24. Thanks, book marked the page which showed all locations

My dad's unit liberated one of the small concentration camps, believe it was one of the reasons
he was so kind to people throughout his life regardless of race, color or creed.

[mucifer]

25. Wow!

[electric_blue68]

20. 🕯️ RIP

[niyad]

22. Rest in power, brave soul.

[ZonkerHarris]

26. anyone have a link around the paywall so we can read more about this amazing man?

[Liberty Belle]

27. More of the story:

Mr. Kaminsky learned to fashion various typefaces, a skill he had picked up in elementary school while editing a school newspaper, and was able to imitate those used by the authorities. He pressed paper so that it, too, resembled the kind used on official documents, and photoengraved his own rubber stamps, letterheads and watermarks.

...After Paris was liberated, Mr. Kaminsky went to work for the revived French government, where he fabricated documents that allowed intelligence agents to penetrate Nazi territory in order to gather evidence about the death camps. He continued to forge documents for three decades after the war, aiding insurgents in British-mandate Palestine, French Algeria, South Africa and Latin America. He also fabricated papers for Americans trying to evade the military draft during the Vietnam War.

“I saved lives because I can’t deal with unnecessary deaths — I just can’t,” he told The New York Times in 2016. “All humans are equal, whatever their origins, their beliefs, their skin color. There are no superiors, no inferiors. That is not acceptable for me.”

Mr. Kaminsky was the subject that year of an Emmy Award-winning documentary short, “The Forger,” produced by The Times’s Opinion section.

[ZonkerHarris]

28. thank you!

[littlemissmartypants]

29. He was a true hero. If only more of us could be a fourth as compassionate as he was!

RIP Mr. Kaminsky. Deep condolences to his family and all of those who were touched by his heroic compassion.

Along the same vien...
I have been rewatching the documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and company* named The U.S. and the Holocaust.

It's a three part series.

The Golden Door” (Beginnings-1938)
Yearning to Breathe Free (1938 - 1942) and
The Homeless, The Tempest-Tossed (1942 - )

Find your local station and follow the links. It's free to stream for a limited time.
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/

The U.S. and the Holocaust

The U.S. and the Holocaust is a three-part, six hour series that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.

Premiered September 18, 2022.

Episode Guide:
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/episode-guide/#episode-guide

Watch:
1) https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/episode-1-the-golden-door-beginnings-1938

"The Golden Door” (Beginnings-1938) After decades of maintaining open borders, a xenophobic backlash prompts Congress to pass its first laws restricting immigration. Meanwhile, in Germany, Hitler and the Nazis begin their persecution of Jewish people, causing many to try to flee to neighboring countries or America. Franklin Roosevelt and other world leaders are concerned by the growing refugee crisis but fail to coordinate a response.
Runtime: 128m 43s

2) https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/episode-2-yearning-to-breathe-free-1938-1942

“Yearning to Breathe Free” (1938-1942)
As World War II begins, Americans are united in their disapproval of Nazi brutality but divided on whether to act. Some individuals and organizations work tirelessly to help refugees escape. Meanwhile, Charles Lindbergh and isolationists battle with Roosevelt to try to keep America out of the war. Germany invades the Soviet Union and secretly begins the mass murder of European Jews.
Runtime: 137m 35s

3) https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/episode-3-the-homeless-tempest-tossed-1942

“The Homeless, Tempest-Tossed” (1942 - )
A group of dedicated government officials fights red tape to finance and support rescue operations. As the Allied soldiers advance, uncovering mass graves and liberating German concentration camps, the public sees for the first time the sheer scale of the Holocaust and begins to reckon with its reverberations.
Runtime: 130m 51s

*Meet the filmakers here:
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/about-the-filmmakers


It's fairly long but it is astounding, heart breaking, grotesque and riveting. It should be required for graduation from high school, imo.

Since I've been sick it's been hard to concentrate. Assembling this took me more than an hour. SMDH. That's why my posts have been scarce lately.

I've been doing more passive activities and this is one of those. I'm on my fourth re-watch and I've learned something different every time.

In the episode I watched last night there was a portion about the desperate push to create fake documents that saved countless lives. I'm not sure if Mr. Kaminsky is mentioned by name but I do remember the mention of a famous cartoonist who proved to be quite adept at forging.

There was a Chinese man who created numerous documents that were never challenged because none of the Nazi immigration specialists could read Chinese and they didn't even bother to try to translate it which no doubt saved many lives.

If you can take the time to watch, because it is rather long, I highly recommend it. I'm cross posting to the Video and Multimedia Forum.

Thanks for sharing this, Tanuki.

❤️ pants