Sunday 29 October 2017

How the tech workers of WWII thwarted the Nazis with high-tech sabotage

Comptroller general of the French Army René Carmille "purposely delayed the process by mishandling the punch cards," changing the programming so that the religion field wouldn't be read from them; Adolfo Kaminsky used his dry-cleaning chemical expertise to remove the red "J" (for Jew) stamps from French passports, and could forge 30 identity documents per hour; the Kasharyiot (female couriers) could pass for Aryans and smuggled "secret documents, weapons, underground newspapers, money, medical supplies, news of German activities, forged identity cards, ammunition — and other Jews — in and out of the ghettos of Poland, Lithuania and parts of Russia"; Walter Süskind and his friends used their positions running the nursery where Dutch Jewish children awaited deportation to camps to smuggle 600 children to safety. (more…)