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Overlooked Important WWII Figures from History

Khalid Elhassan October 20, 2019 31 min

23. Kaminsky Becomes a Self-Taught Chemistry Expert

Kaminsky in his photography studio in 1947. Spiegel

Adolfo Kaminsky started reading up on chemistry, and took a part-time job working for a chemist on the weekend. That knowledge and love of chemistry ended up coming in handy during his subsequent career as a forger.

When France fell to the Germans in 1940, Adolfo was 15 years old. It did not take long before he felt the Nazi yoke. First, his home was seized early in the occupation to quarter German troops, and his family was evicted. The following year, the Nazis shot Adolfo’s mother dead.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.