How a skillful 'forger' saved thousands of lives by creating fake passports during World War II

Adolfo Kaminsky is a name that means a lot to Jews who escaped the oppression of Nazis during World War II and their descendants. He was the one who used his unique talent, learned while working at a dry cleaner, to save the lives of around 14,000 Jewish men, women, and children. With his magnanimous and selfless efforts, he proved that sometimes, learning the art of deception can be used for ethical purposes too. What did he do? He gave thousands of Jews hope for a new future by forging passports and documents for them. Recently, The National World War II Museum recognized the life-saving forgery by Kaminsky, who was known to be one of the greatest rescuers during World War II. 

In the museum's International Conference in 2022, historian Sarah Bennett Farmer speculated that more than 14,000 Jews were saved from deportation to the Nazi extermination camps because of Kaminsky’s forgeries during World War II. Most of these survivors were children.

Kaminsky's parents were Russian Jews who were expelled from France for their socialist views. So, when they were living in Argentina, they welcomed a son in 1925 who later became the master forger. The family eventually moved to Paris in 1932 during the Great Depression and Kaminsky had to take up a labor job in an aircraft instrument manufacturing factory. However, the Nazi invasion of Paris in 1940 threatened the lives of Kaminskys. That is when he lost his job in the factory and began working for a dry cleaner, where his forging skills spawned. He was astute in changing the colors and removing stains from garments while also contributing to the French Resistance. 

In 1943, the Kaminskys faced an uphill battle when they were arrested and deported to the Nazi camp in Drancy. However, the family's Argentinian citizenship rescued them from the dreadful camp, after which the Kaminskys' obtained forged documents from a Jewish Resistance group to save their lives. As per the New York Times, it was while picking up these documents that Kaminsky's journey of forging began. As an 18-year-old, he suggested to an agent in the group that lactic acid would help remove blue ink from documents and because of this, he was invited to work for the group. Since then, Kaminsky, along with the resistance group, saved countless lives, most of which were children. "It’s a simple calculation: In one hour I can make 30 blank documents; if I sleep for an hour, 30 people will die," the forger told the media.

Under the pseudonym Julien Keller, Kaminsky was operating from a secret laboratory in Paris, risking his life to save many who were about to be deported to Nazi camps. The most heartwarming part about his contribution to the French Resistance was that he never charged money for his services. He believed that the documents he created held the lives of many innocents out there. "I saved lives because I can’t deal with unnecessary deaths, I just can’t. All humans are equal, whatever their origins, their beliefs and their skin color. There are no superiors, no inferiors. That is not acceptable to me," he had shared. Even in his teens, he was the master of recreating typefaces, photo engraving and removing blue ink to fabricate birth certificates, passports and ration cards.

Even after saving so many precious lives, Kaminsky was concerned about the ones he couldn't save. "The smallest error and you send someone to prison or death. It’s a great responsibility. It’s heavy. It’s not at all a pleasure," he said and added, "I think mostly of the people that I couldn’t save." After living a remarkable life, Kaminsky breathed his last at the age of 97 at his home in Paris on January 9, 2023. His daughter Sarah Kaminsky published his biography "Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger’s Life," which speaks about his meticulous effort to save the Jews. Also, in 2016, the New York Times made a documentary about him - "The Forger" - which was a News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2017.