Adolfo Kaminsky

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Adolfo Kaminsky (born October 1, 1925 in Buenos Aires , Argentina ) is a chemist and photographer of Russian-Jewish origin who became known through a publication by his daughter Sarah Kaminsky, who described his life as an identity card forger since the German occupation of France, initially as a member the Resistance , in particular to protect Jews from persecution and deportation , later for the French secret service , the Deuxième Bureau , which he supplied with forged German ID cards so that agents could track down unknown concentration camps in Germany.

Even after the Second World War , Kaminsky remained a forger, initially working for the National Liberation Front of Algeria under the code name "Monsieur Joseph" . He later helped French conscientious objectors during the Algerian War ; and Daniel Cohn-Bendit took his services.

A total of more than 30 years underground , Kaminsky got out in 1971 and worked full-time as a photographer, which had previously been his cover-up job. His daughter Sarah made his life public in 2009 with a highly regarded biography .

Life

Kaminsky's family came from Russia, his father Salomon Kaminsky was a Jew of Polish nationality, who married a Russian woman and emigrated to France with her in 1910. However, due to the developing political situation, they stayed only briefly in France and fled to Argentina in 1917. Their two sons were born there, the eldest in 1922, followed by Adolfo Kaminsky in 1925. After the political situation had relaxed, the family returned to France in 1932 and initially settled in Paris, where Salomon Kaminsky worked as a tailor. In 1938 they moved to Vire , where an uncle Salomon Kaminsky was already living. Here Adolfo Kaminsky began a dye apprenticeship at the age of 14 and continued his education in chemistry.

After the conquest of large parts of France in 1940, the German Wehrmacht occupied the family's house and, like all the Jewish Vires families, took them to a collective flat, where they were registered and monitored by the local authorities. In November 1940 Kaminsky's mother was killed on the Paris - Granville railway line due to unknown circumstances; a murder by the Nazis is suspected, but has not been proven. On October 22, 1943, the rest of the family was arrested by the occupiers, initially interned in Maladrerie prison in Caen and transferred to the Drancy assembly camp a week later . However, due to an intervention by the Argentine ambassador, they were unexpectedly released on December 22, 1943. But because Argentina broke off diplomatic relations with the German Reich on the same day , the family was in danger of being arrested and deported again.

Adolfo Kaminsky went underground at the end of 1943 and joined the French Resistance , where, because of his knowledge of chemistry, he was assigned to the “Sixth” La sixième , a small Jewish group that ran a forgery laboratory for the resistance movement in Paris . Kaminsky began to produce forged papers - all kinds of documents, such as ID cards, passports, baptismal certificates, birth certificates, driver's licenses, certificates. As a rule, entire series of papers had to be forged that the refugees needed to invent and simulate a credible vita .

After the Second World War, Kaminsky stayed underground and initially helped surviving Jews to enter Palestine with forged papers . Later he provided various resistance movements with false papers and identities. From the Algerian war and the South American liberation movements to the uprisings against dictators like Salazar , Franco or the Greek colonels and the South African anti-apartheid movement : Kaminsky supported those persecuted with false papers and used increasingly sophisticated methods. As a camouflage, he worked as a photographer, where his necessary equipment did not attract attention.

According to his own statement, he delivered the “most media-effective and unnecessary” forgery for Daniel Cohn-Bendit . Cohn-Bendit, known as "Dany le Rouge", was expelled from France as one of the leaders of the student revolt of May 1968. With Kaminsky's help, he returned with false papers.

In 1971 Kaminsky delivered his last fake and got out because he was threatened with exposure and he was no longer able to earn enough money with his cover job to support his family. Because he said he had never taken any money for his counterfeiting work. He moved to Algeria, where he married the Tuareg Leïla and began his “bonus life”, as he called it. Kaminsky had three children; In 1973 his firstborn, Atahualpa, was born, in 1977 his second son, José Youcef Lamine, who is known in France as the rapper Rocé . In 1979 daughter Sarah was born, who became an actress and screenwriter, and in 2009 published a biography of her father, which received a lot of attention and has been translated into many languages. From 1982 Kaminsky lived with his family again in France.

literature

  • Sarah Kaminsky: Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire. Calmann-Levy, P. (2009). ISBN 978-2-7021-4032-1 (German A forger's life. 2011. ISBN 978-3-88897-731-2 )
  • Marie-Pierre Ulloa: Francis Jeanson: a dissident intellectual from the French Resistance to the Algerian War

Web links

Individual evidence


personal data
SURNAME Kaminsky, Adolfo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Monsieur Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chemist, photographer, identity card forger
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Buenos Aires , Argentina