Loading summary
Transcript91 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
B
Thank you very much, Sarah, for agreeing to meet with me and talk to me. Just a brief introduction. Today I have a privilege talking to Sarah Kaminsky, who is a daughter of Adolfa Kaminsky and an author of Adolfa Kaminsky, A Forger Life, Forgerous Life. Sara herself is multi talented. Sarah is an author, a screenwriter and actress, and probably more than that. So she can fill in if I left something out. She was born in Algeria and immigrated to France when she was three years old with her father and her Algerian born mother, who was a law student and a daughter of a progressive imam. And when we talk about Adolf Kaminsky, we'll recognize that he is multi country person in a way. He has Russian Jewish background, he's Argentinian background, he has French background. So he's somebody who's this hyphenated kind of personality. As we talk about the book, we might come across some of this as well. So thank you again, Sarah, for agreeing to talk to me. Before we start going to my questions, do you have any questions or anything you want to add so the audience know a little bit more about you?
- [01:37]
A
No, not really. I think you did very well. Thank you very much.
- [01:42]
B
Okay, so let me go through my questions which come from my very close reading of the book. I start with the fact that when you were just 24 years old, your father Adolfo was about to celebrate his 78th birthday. You write that you began to feel it was necessary to learn more about his life so that your son Alec, who had been born, just born, could get to know his grandfather. What kind of relationship did Alec ultimately developed with his grandfather and I, just for people to know. The book was published in 2009 and Adolfo died in 2023 at the age of 97 at his home in Paris. And I am working through the newer edition of the book. So going back to my question, what kind of relationship did Alec ultimately developed with his father, Grandfather?
- [02:44]
A
Yeah, we, we should probably say that Adolfo, my father, was born in 1925, so a long time ago. 78. I was afraid that he could die maybe. And we had this incredible chance to have him stay with us alive until he was 97, which was wonderful. So my son had plenty of time to meet him, to discover him, to speak with him. But when I wrote the book, I didn't know if it would be possible. I was afraid that maybe he could die and my son would be only five or seven or something like that. And I knew many things about the, the story of my Father, but I didn't know how huge it was. And every time we asked him to tell us the story, he always said, okay, someday I will write a book and you will have all the answers of your questions in the book. And all his life, I heard him telling us that. But when Alek and when Alec was born, I thought, okay, this is not possible. I have to ask the question and I will write the book. He's not able to write. And Alec, from his very birth, knows that the telling of my father's story has been made thanks to him. He saw me writing the book. He listened to my father telling his story when he was very little. This made. The relationship that they developed is absolutely great. Actually. They share the same sensitivity. I think maybe all this story made Alec grow faster, maybe, and realize sad things, you know, about wars and things like that. Maybe a little bit young, but this happened that in this way they. They really have. They really had a link that even I. And I have a very, very strong link to my father, but even I didn't have with him.
- [05:40]
B
Thank you. Can you hear me okay?
- [05:42]
A
Yes.
- [05:43]
B
Okay. Do you think. I don't have it here written, but do you think that there was certain reluctance on the part of your father to actually write down his biography?
- [05:56]
A
Yes, I think he wanted to do it, but he was not able to do it for many reasons. But the first reason is that he spent 30 years of his life in total secrets, more than secrets, more than you can imagine. The secrets he had to keep were secrets he could not say even under torture. So suddenly being able to speak, to speak freely in was quite hard for him. And even when it was me who. Who was writing the book, he was kind of afraid of certain informations. And he was not, you know, he. He was someone who stayed all his life in the shadow. All his life in the shadow. And. And to suddenly be. I mean, to suddenly say, tell his story was really, really hard for him. And also what was quite. Even tricky for me is that for the. All the events of his life are full of traumas, full of enormous traumas. So even to share the story and the details, to share them with me, of course, he. Trust me, I'm his daughter. But it was quite difficult because he never went to see. How do you say, psychanalyst, for example, you know, he never worked on his traumas. So, yes, I think the reluctances he had were very emotional.
- [08:12]
B
Yeah. Do you think there was some healing when he actually did talk to you, do you think it helped him to deal with some of the trauma that you just mentioned?
- [08:23]
A
I think so. I think so. You know, we spent a lot of time together for the book for several reasons, because I was also working by the side, so I didn't have so much time. But we had, like, some rituals. We used to meet each other twice a week and to speak. And I know that for some of his traumas, we spent many, many, many, many, many days around the same fact because he couldn't go the step forward before it was said so many times. And so, yes, we. Yes, I'm sure it helped him, and it helped him to put some words on his own emotions. Because, for example, my father was someone very, very, very humble. I think I never met anyone as humble as he was. And he was quite shy about emotions. So usually what I did is that I had to find the words and the sentences to say what he was not able to say. So I used to write what I felt that he felt. It's quite strange, but I had to write first what I could feel about what he felt. And I wrote the sentences and then I showed him, and he read them and said. And he used to say, oh, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Or maybe, no, I would say it another way. So that was very helpful for him to be able to put words on the traumas, on everything you see, and to also to see his. His big, big, big life in a unique. I would say in a unique story. It helped him a lot.
- [10:56]
B
Before I move to the next question. Next question. I just want to say that my guess is that it was very rewarding for both of you because helping somebody to deal with trauma, even though it was not your initial intention, I'm sure it was, felt pretty good. So I think from even from this standpoint, I think it's just really wonderful. We don't usually take too much time to get to know our parents. So let me go to the next question. You write that what struck you most in your conversations with your father was his sense of responsibility to what toward others. And his guilt as having survived. Feelings that help explain 30 years of his forgery, despite many personal sacrifices. What did he share with you about his sense of responsibility? And it cost to him. He already mentioned that he was very shy and not used to talking about himself. And yet he did a lot of things that basically sacrifice his own life to the degree. And you said that this is the sense of responsibility that he felt about others. That was something that also provoked his guilt about having survived. So what did he Share about with you about the sense of responsibility.
- [12:27]
A
He's. He, he. He. He was. He used to say, I did what I did because I had to do it. You know, it was like his very simple way to say that he could not do. He. He was not able not to. Not to help. And what I understood and what I realized is that if he hadn't saved all these people, all these children,
- [13:03]
B
he
- [13:04]
A
really would have commit suicide. Because for him, he would have thought that he didn't deserve to be alive. Why would he deserve to be alive when the people he loved so much and he admired so much were dead? So why him? He had something to do to prove that he was worth of living, of being alive. And all his life was like that. I mean, when I was born, he was not a forger anymore and he was not helping anyone anymore, but he was still trying to help, even without being a forger. He used to be someone. If you had a problem, he wanted to help anyhow. So yeah, I think he had then a mission, something like that. And for all the sacrifices he made then after, I think he made, it was easier to make the sacrifices on his life. You know, like it was easier for him to make these sacrifices than not to help people surviving.
- [14:43]
B
It's a beautiful phrase. Easier to make sacrifices than not to help people. It's beautiful. So let me move to probably not very probably difficult question. Way I wanted to ask you, how much did your father share you with you about his internment in Drancy? What were the most.
- [15:06]
A
Can I repeat? Yes, can you just.
- [15:09]
B
How much. Can you just repeat the question? How much did your father share with you about internment? What were the most impactful events he recalled? And how did these experiences shape his decision to engage in forgery? When he was dressing, he apparently, as we know, survived. But there were certain things that affected him. And what were this?
- [15:39]
A
He was interned in Drancy for three months, which is a very, very long time. Usually Jewish people in around Paris were interned in Drancy. Sometimes only one day, sometimes one week. But then as soon as there was a thousand people that could go to deportation, then they sent a train. So Drancy was not a place you stayed in. It was a place you were parked and then. And then sent to the death camps. And everybody knew that there was nothing else than death at the end of the journey. They knew it because the propaganda said that they were going to working camps, but they were sending very, very old people and babies to working camps. So they absolutely knew at that time that they were sent to Death. And my father and his brothers and his father, they saw so many people sent to the train, so many people. And he had many traumas there because. He was rounded up with his girl best friend, who was the same age as him, and she was called Dora. And during the. When they were brought to Drancy, her father died, the father of Dora. And my grandfather promised to the father of Dora before he died that he would take care of Dora, and that's what he did in the camp. But Dora was French, and she was not protected as an Argentinian. My father was Argentinian. He has that chance to be protected. So they tried to adopt Dora. They tried to do it, but it was impossible. And when she was in the. On the list for deportation, they could do nothing. And this was a big, big trauma for my father. Why her and not him? He. All the people he met there, he knew that they were not going to come back. And after the war, when there was the return of all the deportees, he tried to find them. He tried to. He tried to find all the people he met there, and no one returned.
- [19:04]
B
I'm sure it added to the sense of guilt you were talking about just before. Yeah. So let's switch gears a little bit to your father's parents. His parents were born in Russia and met in Paris. Right. In 1916.
- [19:28]
A
No, they met in France in, what did you say?
- [19:36]
B
1916.
- [19:39]
A
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, 1916. Yes, yes, yes.
- [19:42]
B
So your father believed that his father had been a Marxist and a former member of the band. Yes, his parents. His parents were forced to leave France as rats, like Communists, and moved to Argentina, where Adolfo was born. But then he turned five and they returned to Paris. So why did he make the decision to move from Argentina to Paris?
- [20:14]
A
Because my grandmother, she arrived in Paris in 19. I don't remember exactly the. When she arrived with her mother, her sister and brother, and all her family stayed in Paris. She was the only one who had to. To. To immigrate to Argentina because of this suspicion that friends had about my. Her husband. So when she was in Argentina, she was very, very sad to be far from her family, from her mother. She was very close to her, and so she. She just wanted to go back. And my grandparents, as so many Jewish people from all over the world, they were sure that France was the best place to be because, you know, Napoleon gave them. Gave the Jewish people the nationality, and so they were sure that France were the best place to be. So as soon as they had their Argentinian papers, then they decided to go back.
- [21:36]
B
So you mentioned that Jewish people believed in Francis approach to Jews acceptance as the best place to be. Yes. I was curious, what was your father's relationship with Jewish texts? Jewish liturgical texts. For example, your discussion of reciting the prayer of the dead was interesting. What significance did Jewish religious text had for him given that he was not religious?
- [22:13]
A
He was really not religious. And his father and mother were not really religious either because they were Marxists. So they didn't really. My father doesn't know anything about the text. Actually he knows nothing. But he knew nothing because he. He was. And. And at home. Yes, of course they knew they were Jewish, but they didn't really know other Jewish people. They were not sent to Jewish schools or things like that. And they didn't. He used to hear his parents speaking Yiddish because of. And especially they used to speak Yiddish when they didn't want the kids to understand what they were talking about. No, my grandfather knew the texts very well. He was not practicing anything, but he knew the text very well. So I imagine that he came from religious family.
- [23:32]
B
So in spite of the fact that your father didn't have much knowledge about Judaism and didn't know too many Jewish people, yet he felt certain sense of affinity, love or compassion for Jewish people. So I'm assuming it was not just for Jewish people, it was more a sense of this humanity unity.
- [23:58]
A
Yes, yes. He really was a humanist.
- [24:05]
B
So he was not required to wear yellow stars. Argentinian. How did it affect his sense of identity in relation to other Jews? So I mean, he knew he is Jewish and he saw other Jews were identified by this yellow star where he was not. Did it affect him somehow?
- [24:26]
A
Yes, yes. He couldn't stand anything that for him it was
- [24:35]
B
only.
- [24:37]
A
He couldn't stand that people, him or anyone had to be treated in another way than the others. You see, I think, you know, when he arrived in France, he learned at school the, you know, the de visa of France is liberty, egaliti, fraternity. I don't know how we would translate it in English. Let me ask my computer. Liberty, equality, fraternity, we would say, or freedom, equality and brotherhood. These three words were very, very important for him. It was not that he was feeling that he was French, he knew he was Argentinian and Jewish and Russian. But he loved these three words. And I think somehow he tried to.
- [25:57]
B
To do what this
- [26:01]
A
motto was telling him.
- [26:06]
B
There's another thing that was interesting, his relationship to Zionism. At one point he refused to forge documents for survivors. You're writing. But something changed in his view after he visited camps in Germany in 1948. That's what you're writing. And that's when he learned about some survivors who felt it will be better to die than to return the countries that betrayed them. But what shocked him the most if what I remember you writing these children, these children who became orphans like this. And what do you think that this visit to the camps made to his approach about to Zionism? Because before it, to him it was more of kind of nationalistic movement that he didn't approve. But the camp, visiting the camp made some kind of switch and change in him. What was it?
- [27:08]
A
It didn't really make a switch. I think he never was a Zionist actually. He really thought that the Jewish people should be able to live anywhere, everywhere without fearing for their lives or for anything. This is what he really thought all his life. So he didn't switch. But he, he thought that after the war, as these people preferred to die to go than to, to. To go to, to. To the place of their worst traumas. And he understood that he, he, he should help them go anywhere. It was not for him going to Palestine or anywhere they would have asked to go to, to, to, I don't know, to, to Mexico. It would have been the same. Actually. It was not a religious way of going somewhere because of the religion. Because all his life he fought for everybody to be the same anywhere. So he never believed in lands and nations or things like that. He believed in IDs.
- [28:46]
B
Yeah, interesting. So for him it was not the place, it just an ability to be free. To be.
- [28:53]
A
To be free.
- [28:54]
B
To be.
- [28:56]
A
You know, he, he had a very complicated, complicated link to borders. Right. Because as for so many Jewish people, borders, you know, exiles crossing borders had made the lives or so many families really difficult. And for his family it was because they had to. They were born in Russia, they went to France, thought they were free and then had to go to move to Argentina. And when they wanted to go back to France, they couldn't. They had to go to Turkey and then back to France. And so he was, he really thought that anybody would be able, should be able to go in a place in which you feel free and you are not in danger. When he went to Germany and he discovered these people who were still in the camps, they were free, but they preferred to stay in the camps, in the same camps and with the same close as prisoners. They prefer to stay there with nothing than to go back to their so called country. And, and these, all these children who had no more parents but who had no more. Who could not trust adults anymore. They were hordes of children without adults. They were like savage, savage children trying to survive all alone because they couldn't trust anymore any adults because what they saw, what the. Yeah, he thought that these children, they could be saved. It was not too late. They could be, They could be with new families and maybe with a lot of time and with a lot of love and with a lot of many, many things that they needed, they could survive and trust again.
- [31:48]
B
Switch gears for a little bit. We talked about him being shy and not wanting to be in center of attention, but it also something that he needed to stay outside of the spotlight because of what he was doing. And it put him outside of social networks and kind of made him to some degree isolated. How did he deal with this loneliness and isolation? What helped him to sustain his livelihood without feeling depressed about this isolation that was kind of forced on him to some degree because of what he was doing.
- [32:30]
A
He was not totally alone. He used to work with people and to see people and there was usually organizations in which he had social friends, girlfriends. So he was not so alone, so lonely. The thing is that he couldn't, he couldn't get out of these people who
- [33:03]
B
were,
- [33:05]
A
who knew the secrets or. He had to, he had to. To separate lives between his secret activities and the real life. You know, it's like, I think maybe as like a spy way of life.
- [33:33]
B
Was it difficult for him or. No?
- [33:36]
A
Yes, it was. Yes, it was. And it was like, you know, when I was born, my father was not in danger anymore. He could have been in danger because some of his friends have been assassinated. So there was a danger, but he was not doing any false document anymore. But I remember that, for example, if he had a meeting in a cafe, he used to come before the hour of the meeting and to turn around the road to see if there's, if it's not a trap. You know, he developed some paranoid behavior because of, because of so much danger in her life.
- [34:36]
B
So you mentioned that when you were born he was no longer forger. And in 1971, you write, he stepped away from all forgery related activities. What was the main reason for this decision? No longer be involved in forgery?
- [34:56]
A
What was the main. What reason? Oh, there was the main and the very emergency reason was that he, he was certainly going to be arrested or killed.
- [35:15]
B
Oh,
- [35:18]
A
he knew he was in immediate danger and that something was going to happen. He knew it because he was working at that time. He was working for many, many, many people all around the World. And one of the causes he was involved in was the anti apartheid party in South Africa, the ancient, which was the party of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela was in jail, but the party was still fighting. And he used to make forger documents
- [36:10]
B
to allow
- [36:13]
A
the agents of the party to travel and try to get help. And so he used to help them. And he had been contacted by three different networks that were also possibly helping the anc. It was possible, but three different networks brought him a paper as a model, a passport as a model to be forged, and the three different networks, which were not supposed to be linked and to know each other, brought him the same passport. Yeah, so he. Yes, he knew he was going to. Something was going to happen, and they were. They were trying to find the forger.
- [37:10]
B
So.
- [37:11]
A
So he left. You know, he. He just set up a south case and left wherever he could go. And he could go to Algeria because he used to help the Algerian for their independence. And so he knew he could go there. And he went there. He had one friend there, and he thought he was going there for one year just to be, you know, to be. To escape and to be maybe forgotten by all these people who were trying to find him. And there, in Algeria, in Algier, he was offered a job in art university as a photograph photographer. Photo engraver. He was teaching photo engraver. And. But Instead of staying one year, he stayed 10 years there because after. During the first year, he met my mother and then he. He just thought that maybe he could just stop and have a normal life without hiding, without keeping all the time secrets. So he decided to stay and to marry her. And they had three children, and I'm the last one.
- [39:02]
B
So you said he stayed there for 10 years. And I mentioned initially that your mother was the daughter of a progressive imam, right?
- [39:13]
A
Yes.
- [39:14]
B
So, yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about your mother's family?
- [39:20]
A
Yes. You know, I think really my parents didn't do the. Didn't make the easy choices, but love. Love was stronger than. Than the.
- [39:41]
B
The.
- [39:41]
A
Yes, the difficulties. So, yes, my mother is. My mother's family is from the south of Algeria, so they are Tuareg. My mother is black.
- [39:56]
B
Black.
- [39:57]
A
So her skin is black. And her father, of course, it was black too. And he was a progressive imam. Yes, we could say that. Very progressive. More progressive than any other, maybe. But he was the one who thought she should marry him if she loved him.
- [40:26]
B
Yeah, it's the story of the song. Why did. Why did they decide to leave after 10 years? I think he mentioned something, but not directly.
- [40:38]
A
Yes. You know, what happened in Algeria is that the, the, the, the fundamentalists, Islamists were growing in the country and growing with their fundamentalist idea. And it was not yet the war because there was the civil war after that, but we were already gone. We, we left Algeria 10 years before the war started between the Islamists and the militaries, actually. But 10 years before it happened, there was already, you know, it was growing. It was growing in the population. It was growing everywhere. And, and my mother was very, very afraid for us. For my father, of course, he's Jewish. For her, but for the children, she really was afraid. And she saw some events happened in front of her in which some women who was married to a French man was attacked by maybe family members, men from her family members, and she was attacked in the street. And, and nobody was. I mean, yes, some of the population tried to stop, but the, the police didn't do anything because. Because the. Yes, the fundamentalists were getting stronger and stronger. And so she really was afraid and she said, now we have to leave immediately.
- [42:43]
B
Yeah. Apparently love was more important than anything else. Like her father said. Yes, yeah, yeah. She definitely demonstrated her love and commitment to your father and to the kids. I mean, your mix.
- [42:58]
A
Yes, yes, yes, that, that, you know, that's. That would have been a big, big problem.
- [43:04]
B
Yeah.
- [43:06]
A
Hopefully she decided to live.
- [43:08]
B
Yeah, great, too. I mean, she had to remake her whole life. It's brave of her, too. Yeah, yes, sure, sure. All right, so the book is not about this. It was all the book question. Right. So getting back to your book, why do you think this book, your father's story, resonated so strongly with so many young people and particularly young readers. So what do you think? Why?
- [43:39]
A
I think because he was young when everything started. And I think that young people, they really. They really feel what happened to him and they feel very close and to him. And. Yeah. You know, really the people who are teenagers, teenagers are very moved by the book and they feel maybe some brotherhood with. With him and because he was fighting injustice. And when you are a teenager, injustice is something you feel very, very high. Yeah, I think that's why.
- [44:36]
B
Yeah. Interesting. I remember you wrote that he was very impressed by the sensitivity and attention of the younger people.
- [44:45]
A
Yes.
- [44:45]
B
It was not even. Kind of didn't expect this to happen. It was nice to see. Yeah. And I'm guessing maybe he remained young in heart, too, so he was able to relate to younger people because he carried this through his life. So. Yeah,
- [45:04]
A
just my father had something I never found in anybody else. He never made any difference between someone who was 17 or 70. Yeah, there was no difference for him.
- [45:22]
B
Yeah, that's what I was kind of. Kind of guessing and him remaining young in his heart and. Yeah. Then differentiate people like this. That's nice. So it's wonderful. So what did you hope readers will take away from this book when you were writing this, other than just telling the story of your father, you were hoping that. What was it?
- [45:49]
A
I was hoping a lot of things, actually, because I was 23 when I started to ask him questions and write the book. I was 23 and I thought that my generation at that time needed some examples of people who just followed their values, moral values, and who just, you know, just. I, I think in the book what you can see is that they were so few. They were so few. They were young, they had nothing and. But they won. They won. They continued to, To. To. To.
- [46:54]
B
To.
- [46:54]
A
The world has to be a good place for everybody. They continued to trust in humanity even when they were sowing such inhumanity, such horrible things. They continued to think that humanity is good.
- [47:23]
B
Yeah. So the hope and good values, hope in humanity, even in the moments of inhumanity. That's beautiful. Yeah. So my last question. If you were writing this book today, would you write anything differently?
- [47:42]
A
I think if I. Because I'm not 23 years old anymore, so maybe I would do something different because I'm not the same person. And he. Maybe if I.
- [48:00]
B
He.
- [48:01]
A
He's dead now. I think I'm so happy that I did it when he was alive. You know, I don't know if I would have. If I would be able to write it
- [48:15]
B
if.
- [48:15]
A
When he's dead. You know, I think it's too sad
- [48:21]
B
for me,
- [48:24]
A
but what I would do if I was writing it today is that today the situations in all the countries is much, much worse than it was when I published the book. So I think I would have been forced to maybe write something on my own from my voice of a kind of a context. You see, I think there is so much disinformation and so I would have. Maybe be. Have to. To. To. To describe more things about context. And you. You see, I described a lot, but not so much. I wanted to make a book easy to read with, of course, the historical explanations and. Of course. But I didn't want to charge a lot with that in the book. I wanted it to be very close to him, very close to his voice. So, yes, I think today I would have to put much more historical indications and political indications. Yes.
- [50:01]
B
Are you thinking of writing another book?
- [50:05]
A
I hope so, one day. You know, I'm a screenwriter, and I have a. I write screenplays, right? So maybe one day I will write another book. But for now, with my husband, who is also a screenwriter, we are also working on the adaptation of the book or the cinema.
- [50:29]
B
That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
- [50:32]
A
Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Books Network. We are an academic podcast network with the mission of public education. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. You can browse all of our episodes on our website, newbooksnetwork.com Connect with us on Instagram and BlueSky with the handle ewbooksnetwork, and subscribe to our weekly Substack newsletter at newbooksnetwork.substack.com to get episode recommendations straight to your inbox.