
As a teenager, Adolfo Kaminsky forged passports to help children flee the Nazis - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/opinion/sunday/if-i-sleep-for-an-hour-30-people-will-die.html
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qwrusz
Related Question: apologies my background is not tech, does anyone have
insight if "hacking" documents like this is easier or harder today as things
move digital?

Ignoring paper passports for a moment, as records move to digital over
physical paper, will adding or removing names become easier or harder?

Thinking of the guy who was able to fake a first class lounge airplane ticket:
[https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how-
to-...](https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how-to-hack-his-
way-into-fancy-airport-lounges#.104VAW7IG)

TL;DR what is harder vs. easier: paper ID forgery or digital ID forgery?

~~~
zigzigzag
Modern passports have an NFC chip in them which holds a digitally signed
version of the passport data. Some of them are more sophisticated chips that
are also uncloneable (but not all of them).

Even the basic form of the chip prevents the creation of entirely fictional
passports, assuming the integrity of the official passport issuing
infrastructure. My understanding is that modern passport fraud therefore tends
to be based on stealing passports on demand from someone who looks like the
client, and/or forging passports that aren't protected by the chip.

~~~
throwaway049
I second this. I have interviewed a substantial number of people in London who
entered the UK on someone else's passport (sometimes rented not stolen). I
also noted when travelling into the UK with someone who holds a UK Biometric
Residence Permit that no use was made of the biometric data: The border agent
just looked at the photo and at the person the old fashioned way.

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gioele
> The youngest member of the group, the lab’s technical director, is
> practically a child himself: Adolfo Kaminsky, age 18.

I doubt that people referred to 18 years old men as "children" in 1944. In the
'40s the average age for marriage was 23 for men and 21 for women.

~~~
jakobegger
Is it actually common to refer to 18 year olds as children today? Or is that a
US thing? I considered myself a grown up at that age; and it wouldn't occur to
me to call someone who is older than 15 a kid.

~~~
icebraining
"College kid" is a common term in US media. In my (European) country, we call
them "young" (as in, "Young invents device" or "Two youngs were yesterday
found ..."), not children.

~~~
Symbiote
You probably use the word that translates as "youth". (Jugend, unge etc).

It was normal in Britain, examples are youth hostel, youth centre, Fountain of
Youth.

But in the last 20 years or so, I think it's been used negatively so often
("drunken youths", "aggressive youths") that if you begin with "a group of
youths..." most people will expect something bad. "A group of teenagers" or "a
group of children" is neutral.

As an adjective, it's still fine. "Youth football team" and so on is fine.

------
sylvinus
You should watch the TEDx talk of his daughter:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky](https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky)

------
nstj
> “The smallest error and you send someone to prison or death,” he told me.
> “It’s a great responsibility. It’s heavy. It’s not at all a pleasure.”

Serious dedication to the cause. A splendid story.

------
zigzigzag
Hmm. Great story, although it gets somewhat dark towards the end. He may have
started out as a noble forger saving children from the Nazis but it sounds
like he kept going for decades and made false passports for whoever wanted
them, no questions asked. "I can't deal with the details because all humans
are equal" sounds a lot like post-hoc rationalization. Forging passports is
all about dealing with tiny details. Understanding why your customers want
false papers seems a lot larger than just a "detail". He wouldn't have forged
papers to help the Nazi's I assume, but apparently after the war ended he
somehow lost his discerning nature.

I'm also 100% not buying his story about never doing it for profit. During
WW2, sure, I can buy that. For the three decades he continued afterwards, when
it was apparently close to full time work? He was a professional underground
forger who made passports for whoever wanted them, no questions asked, even as
the difficulty and sophistication of the needed equipment constantly rose.
Hell yes he asked for money.

~~~
r2dnb
I guess the millions of innocent people deported and killed by the nazis in
front of him gave him a different perspective on what's a detail and what's
not. Perspective probably different than green-pastures-based ones.

I do not endorse breaking the law, and I wouldn't do it myself. But sometimes
it is possible to understand where other people are coming from.

~~~
zigzigzag
Sorry, that doesn't work for me. Lots of people came out of WW2 scarred but
did not go on to become professional criminals. The article flat out says that
some of the groups he worked with were rebel forces in Africa trying to
overthrow governments, not exactly people who are famous for their cuddly
nature.

~~~
r2dnb
>The article flat out says that some of the groups he worked with were rebel
forces in Africa trying to overthrow governments, not exactly people who are
famous for their cuddly nature.

Granted, thanks for insisting I didn't realize that, missed that part. I think
like you that his good intentions might have gone too far and turned into
rationalized behaviour.

~~~
ceejayoz
That statement could cover anyone from Joseph Kony to Nelson Mandela.

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nefitty
A lot of us work and live for acknowledgment. There are so few brave enough to
work and live for effect.

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clydethefrog
Reminds me of the similar touching story of Chiune Sugihara.

[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history/chiune-
sugihara-man-conscience/)

~~~
tagawa
Similarly Sir Nicholas Winton. He kept his actions quiet and there was a
moving TV programme 40 years later where they uncovered the list of children
he saved:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%2...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%22+1988&iax=1&ia=videos)

------
fma
On a similar note, there's Ho Feng-Shan. He worked at the consulate in Vienna
and saved over 3,000 Jews by giving them visas to Shanghai so they can leave
Austria and escape Nazi persecution.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-
Shan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-Shan)

