Each year, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum leads the Nation in commemorating Days of Remembrance.
Days of Remembrance was established by the U.S. Congress to honor the lives of six million Jewish victims—as well as the millions of others killed—and the heroic liberators of the Holocaust. The occasion calls for reflection on, and vigilance against, hatred and genocide.
The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, touting German racial superiority and antisemitism. Adolf Hitler and his allies formulated and conducted systematic genocide across Europe.
About six million Jews and five million others were targeted for racial, political, ideological, and behavioral reasons and killed, including more than one million children.
As Germany conquered large parts of Europe, they spread their persecution and murder of Jews to the areas they occupied. Many did nothing to help their Jewish neighbors. Only a small number of people had the courage to resist and risk everything.
Adolfo Kaminsky, who forged fake documents saved over 10,000 Jewish people.
As a young man, Kaminsky worked tirelessly with the underground resistance to provide identification cards, birth certificates, passports, and ration cards for those facing persecution and deportation.
At age 18, he was recruited by this Jewish resistance group, which was called “The 6th.” In a lab disguised as an artist studio, he and others made a variety of documents with fabricated letterheads, watermarks, and rubber stamps, duplicating typeface, and pressing their own paper.
His technique had to be perfect. Any errors would mean death for those with fake documents and for those who made them. Under the name “Julien Keller,” he worked endlessly without pay.
Kaminsky said, “I’ll always remember our biggest request for documents: 300 children, more than 900 different documents to make in three days. I had to stay awake as long as possible, fight against sleep. The math was simple: in 1 hour, I made 30 fake documents. If I slept one hour, 30 people would die… We couldn’t stop. We finished the documents but just in time.”
His work cost him his vision in his right eye. Kaminsky continued to aid people in crisis with his forgery until the 1970s.
He lived by this testament, “All humans are equal…Whatever their origins, their beliefs, their skin color. There are no superiors, no inferiors. That is not acceptable for me.”
He died in Paris, France, on January 9, 2023, at 97 years old.
| Date Taken: | 04.05.2024 |
| Published: | 04-05-24 01:01 PM |
| Graphic ID: | 29973 |
| VIRIN: | 240405-D-CF733-1004 |
| Size: | 497.23 KB |
| Location: | PATRICK SFB, FL, US |
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