Adolfo Kaminsky

Adolfo Kaminsky (or Adolphe; 1 October 1925 – 9 January 2023) was an Argentine-born member of the French Resistance, specializing in the forgery of identity documents (IDs), and a photographer. During World War II, he forged papers that saved the lives of more than 14,000 Jews. He later assisted Jewish immigration to the British Mandate for Palestine and then forged identity documents for the Algerian National Liberation Front and French 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

Early life Kaminsky was born in Argentina to a Jewish Russian family, the son of Anna (Kinoël) and Salomon Kaminsky. In 1932, when Kaminsky was seven years old, he moved with his family to Paris, Adolfo worked in a dye shop and became fascinated by the chemistry of colourants. At that time, he bought a treatise by Marcellin Berthelot at a flea market. 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, and moved on to Paris. was having problems removing 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. Over the course of the war, Kaminsky created documents that saved the lives of 14,000 Jews.

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.

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

Awards Adolfo Kaminsky was awarded the Croix du Combattant, the Croix du combattant volontaire de la Résistance, and the Médaille de Vermeil de la ville de Paris for his acts during the Resistance.

In the media Jacques Falck made a documentary film about his life, Forging Identity. 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, and also into English in 2016 as Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life.

A short film about Kaminsky entitled The Forger accompanied an online New York Times article in October 2016. 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.

Kaminsky is also referenced in GS Carberry's novel In the Shadow of Monsters, set in WW2 and about the fictional character Niki Frolov and the French Resistance. The book is inspired by Kaminsky's life: "The almost incomprehensible courage of that man and other such individuals lit a fire in my heart. While Kaminsky does not feature in this book, I hope his character is, in some way, reflected in it."