André Kaminker, a pioneer of simultaneous interpretation
This text is a translation of an adaptation of an article published on jazlebontemps.com on April 13, 2020.
André Kaminker was born in 1888 to a Polish father and an Austrian mother. He grew up in Flanders, Belgium, where his schooling was in French. During his secondary education, he learned English thanks to several stays in Great Britain. He was already quadrilingual before turning 18.1
Born in France of foreign parents, André Kaminker opted for French nationality when he came of age.1
After a carreer as a reporter for the radio station Poste Parisien, he began a career as a conference interpreter at the League of Nations and the International Chamber of Commerce.1
In 1934, Hitler gave his famous speech at the 6th Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg. Across the border, more than 800 km away, French radio listeners were amazed to hear the speech in their own language, as it was delivered in German. André Kaminker had reluctantly agreed to interpret the speech into French, translating every word and idea in real time. It had never been attempted before, and Kaminker himself doubted it could be done. But he succeeded, and gave birth to a new form of communication: simultaneous interpretation.1
In 1945, Lieutenant Kaminker was temporarily relieved by the French army to interpret at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, where he became the true star of the conference.1
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Kaminker became a UN official in 1946, and like many of the “greats” of the profession at the time, he was against the introduction of simultaneous interpreting, though he had initiated it, in favor of consecutive interpreting. After retiring from the UN in 1949, he joined the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and became its chief interpreter, affectionately called “Sir Boss” by the interpreters.1
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André Kaminker was one of the great consecutivists. He would place his enormous forehead between his hands, without taking the slightest note - except for a few figures - as if in apnoea for long minutes, to the point where he seemed to be asleep. Then he would reconstitute in clear, precise, flowing French what a delegate had just said in one of the many European languages he mastered.1
In 1953, André Kaminker co-founded AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters). He was its first president, from 1953 to 1956.1
During his presidency of AIIC, Kaminker was expected to help draft the Code of Honor. He scribbled on a piece of paper and said, “Here it is, your Code of Honor.” On the sheet was a single sentence: “Conference interpreters are bound by professional secrecy.”2
1 https://jazlebontemps.com/2020/04/13/andre-kaminker-pere-de-simone-signoret/
2 https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/meta/2004-v49-n3-meta816/009380ar.pdf