Overview

At the age of seventeen Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was living in Nazi occupied Paris, using forged documents to hide in plain sight. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and his ability to masterfully reproduce official documents with an artistic eye, he was recruited to join the Jewish underground. He soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, working tirelessly with his network to create papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women, and children from certain death. Upon the Liberation and for the next twenty-five years, Kaminsky worked as a professional photographer. But, recognizing the fight for freedom had not ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and driven by his own harrowing experiences, he continued to secretly forge documents for thousands of refugees, exiles, immigrants, freedom fighters, and pacifists. Kaminsky kept his past cloaked in secrecy well into his later life, until his daughter and biographer Sarah Kaminsky convinced him to share the details of the life-threatening work he did on behalf of people fighting for justice and peace throughout the world.

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9781665275231

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[An] engrossing literary debut. . . . Writing in Adolfo's voice gives this suspenseful narrative candor and immediacy.-- Kirkus The skill of Simon Vance, narrator of this audiobook, is his ability to take a memoir that opens during the French Resistance in WWII and fully capture its suspense-filled drama. Adolfo Kaminsky, the daring and heroic document forger, helped hundreds of Jewish families escape Occupied France with his perfectly created passports. Although his talent for creating them could have earned him thousands of dollars, Kaminsky, incredibly, never took any payment for his services. This first-person narrative follows thirty years of Kaminsky's career as he went on to fight injustice with his talent around the world. Simon Vance breathes a terrifying reality into what it means to defy tyranny. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. -- AudioFile

"[An] engrossing literary debut. . . . Writing in Adolfo's voice gives this suspenseful narrative candor and immediacy.-- ""Kirkus"" ""The skill of Simon Vance, narrator of this audiobook, is his ability to take a memoir that opens during the French Resistance in WWII and fully capture its suspense-filled drama. Adolfo Kaminsky, the daring and heroic document forger, helped hundreds of Jewish families escape Occupied France with his perfectly created passports. Although his talent for creating them could have earned him thousands of dollars, Kaminsky, incredibly, never took any payment for his services. This first-person narrative follows thirty years of Kaminsky's career as he went on to fight injustice with his talent around the world. Simon Vance breathes a terrifying reality into what it means to defy tyranny. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award."" -- ""AudioFile"""

Author Information

Sarah Kaminsky is an actress, screenwriter, and author born in Algeria. She was three years old when she immigrated to France with her father Adolfo Kaminsky, two brothers, and her mother Leila, a Tuareg Algerian, law student, and anti-colonial activist whose father was a progressive imam. Sarah Kaminsky's first book is the bestselling biography of her father, Adolfo Kaminsky, published by Éditions Calmann-Levy in 2009 and now translated into seven languages. She has a son and lives in Paris. Simon Vance is the critically acclaimed narrator of approximately 400 audiobooks, winner of 27 AudioFile Earphones Awards, and a 12-time Audie Award-winner. He won an Audie in 2006 in the category of Science Fiction and was named the 2011 Best Voice in Biography and History and in 2010 Best Voice in Fiction by AudioFile magazine. Vance has been a narrator for the past 25 years, and also worked for many years as a BBC Radio presenter and newsreader in London. Some of his best-selling and most praised audiobook performances include Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies (an Audie award-winner), Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series (all 21 titles), the new productions of Frank Herbert's original Dune series, and Rob Gifford's China Road (an AudioFile 2007 Book of the Year). Vance lives near San Francisco with his wife and two sons.

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