14. The French Resistance’s Best Forger
After France’s defeat and occupation by the Nazis, a teenaged Adolfo Kaminsky (1925 – 2023) joined the Resistance. He was a precocious and self-taught gifted chemist, who had 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.
Kaminsky continued his forgery career after the war, to help liberation movements around the world. He was born in 1925 to Russian Jewish parents who had emigrated to Argentina, then relocated to France in 1932. He dropped out of school at age thirteen to help support his family, and worked for a dry cleaner. The job introduced him to various compounds, which led to a familiarity with, and subsequent passion for, chemistry.
