Roth 1
History Methodology
HIST 300- D03
Kailey Roth
Liberty University, Online
2
https://www.coursehero.com/file/253185244/HIST300RSPpdf
Life hanging on a Forgery and A Pleaded Cry: WWII
During World War Two, forgeries were detrimental to many peoples survival. Why did forgery
become such a highly needed skill? Forgery was needed more than ever due to the Nazi regime
and it’s coconspirators hunt and wish of complete elimination put on the Jewish population, the
Roman (gypsies), Polish, and any group that had physical or mental disabilities.
Once people realized some of what was going on during the Nazi’s orchestrated
roundups, train rides, or disappearances in general, the need to have identity papers, birth
certificates, and other documents listing people to be anything but a Jew became increasingly
high as did the plea for any assistance. Did the Jews know just how badly they would come to
need the forged documents? Or was it all so sudden, there was no time to think? What toll did it
take on those in hiding who had required the needed documents to hopefully survive but at what
cost? These are some questions that are surfacing over and over again.
It’s imperative to understand how the need for forged documents altered these peoples lives and
the war itself. What would have happened if no one had begun to forge documents? How many
more people would have perished, simply because they were different? Some people like, Mr.
Kaminsky, who forged many documents (among other resistance techniques) and saved over
10,000 of people from death. Families like the Pluczenik-Schor, Angel, and Kohnstam are all
families that used forged documents to escape the death camps and immediate persecution. Not
all of them where successful. However, was that due to the documents that had been forged or
due to people betraying them?
All in all, forgery was an essential part of survival in World War II.. When researching this
particular category of interest I believe it is imperative to look at the survivors stories in depth in
order to better understand at what point they felt it was crucial to get new identities, how to keep
them hidden from the world while also trying not to forget the truth. It will also be crucial to
consider the statistics of how many lives we know about that had been spared due to the art of
3
forgery and the lives that had still been lost, and why. Once personal stories have been
researched through and the statistics of the outcomes assembled, diagrams showing the
difference in outcomes for those who attained forged documents versus those who were unable
to acquire them, as well as the ones who had been betrayed once getting the forged documents,
will show a broader understanding of impact forgery had during World War II.
Primary Sources:
1) Behind Every Name a Story: Pieter (Peter) Kohnstam is one example of how forgery
saved a life. It was through his father (Hans Stefan Kohnstam) quick thinking of
making his family new identity cards that helped them escape from being sent to the
camps when they fled. Pieter is not the only child who was able to escape due to the
making of new documents.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.). Pieter (Peter) Kohnstam. United States
holocaust memorial museum. https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-
reflectionstestimonies/behind-every-name-a-story
2) The Verzets Resistance Museum has published works to do with forgery during WW2
and the techniques that had been used and then adjusted as time went on.
Forging papers. Nederlands. (n.d.).
https://www.verzetsmuseum.org/en/kennisbank/forgingpapers-1
3) Adolfo Kaminsky is written about in high regard due to his tactfulness and his
resourcefulness in writing forgeries in WWII, its stated, “The long and astounding life
of Adolfo Kaminsky (1925–2023) typifies a quite modern form of deception—the art
of forging documents. Recognized as one of the great rescuers not only in World War
II, but in all of modern history. Kaminsky died at his home in Paris on January 9,
2023, at the age of 97” (Dawsey, Jason)
Adolfo Kaminsky. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. (n.d.).
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/adolfo-kaminsky
4) Brands Pluczenik-Schor Memoir. "I often used to wake the children in the middle of
the night, to check if they remembered their new names even when half asleep. I
would repeat over and over again that no one could know that we were Jewish."
Excerpt from the memoir of Branda Pluczenik-Schor from Krakow, who survived the
Holocaust living under a false identity in Budapest together with her husband and
daughters.
5) Nine-year-old Eric Angel was deported from Athens to his death in Auschwitz in
April 1944. A family who risked everything, foraged papers, went into separate
hiding in order to stay alive. The mother and Eric had been detained. Her son killed.
4
Herself tortured. The husband and oldest boy survived and managed to find their way
to the mom once the war was over.
“remember your new name.” Surviving the Holocaust under a False Identity | Yad Vashem.
(n.d.). https://wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/false-identity/index.asp#about
Secondary Sources:
6) WWII forgery factory that helped our spies fool Hitler revealed, by Havis. It goes
over the British counterfeiters abilities, the massive volume of documents forged and
how they fouled the Nazi regime.
Havis, M. (2018, February 20). WWII forgery factory that helped our spies fool Hitler revealed.
Daily Mirror. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/world-war-ii-forgery-factory-
12059968
7) “The top-secret WWII unit that fooled the Nazis” by Christopher Klein is a
documentary. The unit was responsible for saving countless lives while evading the
Nazis, and in turn trapping them.
Klein, C. (2025, January 31). The top-secret WWII unit that fooled the Nazis. History.com.
https://www.history.com/articles/ghost-army-world-war-ii
8) A reputation restored, by Jones. A Swedish statesman, who was one of the most
“remarkable humanitarian achievement of the second world war the rescue of one
17,000 people, including many Jews, from Nazi concentration camps in the last days
of the war” (Jones, 2011).
Jones, N. (2011). A reputation restored. History Today.
9) Fighting Antisemitism: Underground Resistance of the Zionist Youth During the
Holocaust in Romania. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe :
JEMIE.
Filipovici, A. (2024). Fighting Antisemitism: Underground Resistance of the Zionist Youth
During the Holocaust in Romania. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe :
JEMIE, 23(3), 35-66. https://doi.org/10.53779/ANFI1312
10) The Master Forgers Who Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II: From the
Polish embassy in Switzerland came a campaign that spared many from Nazi
extermination, by Nina Strochlic. Nina talks about how the Polish government ended
up making over 10,000 documents creating new identities for Jews so they could be
spared from the death camps.
Strochlic, N. (2024, January 8). The master forgers who saved thousands of lives during World
War II. Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/column-forged-
passportsworld-war-ii
