fairThe photographer, resistant and forger Adolfo Kaminsky, who was involved in the Algerian cause during the Algerian National Liberation War, died on Monday January 9, 2023 in Paris, at the age of 97, announced his relatives.
A talented photographer, but also a “genius forger” for the French resistance against Nazism, Adolfo Kaminsky was one of the precious supporters of the Algerian cause and of other liberation movements in the world: anti-Franco in Spain, anti-Salazar in Portugal, fight against the colonels in Greece, Prague Spring. But also the struggles against dictatorships in Latin America, ANC, Guinea, Angola, American deserters during the Vietnam War and even up to Daniel Cohn-Bendit in May 1968.
By espousing the cause of Algerian independence, this photographer joined the Jeanson and Curiel networks which provided logistical assistance to the National Liberation Front (FLN) during the Revolution. “Forger of Paris”, Adolfo Kaminsky provided FLN militants with false papers.
— Sarah Kaminsky (@skaminsky) January 9, 2023
It should also be noted that this friend of the Algerian cause had settled in Algeria during the 1970s, where he lived for ten years before settling back in France.
Adolpho Kaminsky was a “humanist, photographer and French resistance fighter, specializing in the manufacture of false papers”, summed up Sarah Kaminsky, who had recounted the life of her father in the book Adolfo Kaminsky, a forger’s life.
Book cover of Sarah Kaminsky, daughter of photographer and forger Adolfo Kaminsky
Who was the humanist and photographer Adolfo Kaminsky?
Son of Jewish Russian immigrants, born in Buenos Aires in 1925 before going to France, he dreamed of being an artist-painter. But at 17, he joined the Resistance in Paris, after leaving the Drancy internment camp. He offers his knowledge of chemistry and photoengraving, useful for discoloring the inks that will be used to make false papers, in a clandestine laboratory, saving thousands of lives. The beginning of a rich three-decade career, risking his life and disregarding his health, under cover of an activity as a photographer, all that is most banal in his workshops in the Latin Quarter or the Path.
In 1971, he had put an end to his forgery activities. His work as a photographer, with a humanism reminiscent of Doisneau, had been the subject of an exhibition, notably at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism in 2019. His life was the subject of a play . The director Jean-Claude Falet had paid tribute to him, in 2016, by adapting the novel of the daughter of this hero of the shadows.
