13. A Teenage Forger Who Helped Save Thousands From the Holocaust
French teenager Adolphe Kaminsky joined the Resistance after France’s defeat and occupation by the Germans in 1940. He was a precocious and self-taught gifted chemist, which he combined with a talent for forgery. He used those skills to make himself perhaps Europe’s best underground forger. He specialized in identity papers, and forged documents that helped save the lives of thousands of Jews. He continued his forgery career after the war, to help liberation movements around the world.
Adolphe was born in 1925 to Russian Jewish parents who had emigrated to Argentina, before relocating to France in 1932. He dropped out of school when he was thirteen to help support his family, and got a job working for a dry cleaner. That introduced him to various compounds, which led to a familiarity with, and subsequent passion for, chemistry. He started reading up on chemistry, and took a part-time job working for a chemist on the weekend. That came in handy during his subsequent career as a forger, and helped save thousands from the Holocaust.
