The New York Times Sunday Review last October had a profile of Adolfo Kaminsky, a forger in the French Underground who saved “helped save the lives of thousands of people by making false documents to get them into hiding or out of the country. He went on to forge papers for people in practically every major conflict of the mid-20th century.” His daughter learned of his story late in his life, and wrote Adolfo Kaminsky, A forger’s Life, now available in English.
The title of the NY Times piece, “If I sleep for an Hour, 30 People Will Die,” comes from a rush job that he was given, an impossible task.
In one scene from the book, Mr. Kaminsky stays awake for two nights straight to fill an enormous rush order. “It’s a simple calculation: In one hour I can make 30 blank documents; if I sleep for an hour, 30 people will die.”
What haunts Mr. Kaminsky to this day, and he is 91, is what haunts me, too:
I remember one day, I knocked on all the doors on a list that I received the day before and spent all night learning it by heart. The names and addresses of dozens of Jewish families that would be rounded up the next day at dawn. I remember a widow on Oberkampf Street. Her name was Madame Drawda. When I offered to make her documents, she got offended.
“Why should I hide? I haven’t done anything and I’ve been French for many generations!”
I tried everything to convince her. I knew if she stayed, she and her children would be deported and sent to die.
She didn’t want to know.
There is a 16 minute video embedded in the Times article, and I share it here as well, in which he tells this story, and the story of his life. It’s well worth 16 minutes of your time.
I share this, because, who among us, reading this, today, is not, even in some small manner or aspect, Madame Drawda?