25 Facts About Adolfo Kaminsky

Adolfo Kaminsky was an Argentine-born member of the French Resistance, specializing in the forgery of identity documents, and photographer.

Adolfo Kaminsky later assisted Jewish immigration to the British Mandate for Palestine and then forged identity documents for the Algerian National Liberation Front and French draft dodgers during the Algerian War.

Adolfo Kaminsky forged papers for thirty years for different activist groups, mainly national liberation fronts, without ever requiring payment.

In 1932, when Adolfo Kaminsky was seven years old, he moved with his family to Paris, where his father worked as a tailor.

Adolfo Kaminsky worked in a dye shop and became fascinated by the chemistry of colourants.

Adolfo Kaminsky later created his own laboratory in his uncle's house and worked in a butter factory as an assistant to a chemist who taught him the basics.

In 1940, after the German invasion of France, the family house in Vire was taken by the Germans and Adolfo Kaminsky temporarily lived in another house, in which Michel Drucker's father was hosted.

Adolfo Kaminsky's mother was killed by the Nazis in 1941.

Adolfo Kaminsky then worked in an underground lab in Paris where he spent the rest of World War II forging identity papers for Jews and people sought by the Nazis.

Adolfo Kaminsky was introduced to the network, the Resistance group, while seeking a false ID for his father.

Adolfo Kaminsky suggested they use lactic acid, and thereafter joined the group, finally becoming responsible for the chemical forgery lab.

Adolfo Kaminsky quickly learned photogravure under a false pretext, and set up a new lab in order to create "real-false" documents.

The Adolfo Kaminsky Lab became the main producer of false IDs for northern France and Benelux, although ties with other clandestine groups were discontinued, each group working as a cell.

Adolfo Kaminsky was awarded the Medaille de la Resistance, and was engaged by the French military secret services, who entrusted him with making false IDs for spies sent behind enemy lines in order to investigate and detect the location of concentration camps before their dismantlement by the Nazis.

Adolfo Kaminsky assisted operatives from the anti-British militant groups Irgun and Lehi as they waged a violent campaign against the British.

Adolfo Kaminsky resigned from the French military at the beginning of the First Indochina War, unwilling to collaborate in a colonial war.

Adolfo Kaminsky thereafter continued to forge papers for various groups, working first with the National Liberation Front of Algeria and French draft dodgers by setting up a clandestine lab in Paris.

Adolfo Kaminsky collaborated with the Jeanson network and Henri Curiel during the Algerian War.

Adolfo Kaminsky trained many people in forgery in order to support them in their respective struggles.

Adolfo Kaminsky supported the Greeks struggling against the regime of the Colonels, and made false ID papers for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam War.

Adolfo Kaminsky gave up his forgery career after he was asked to forge South African passports for anti-apartheid guerrillas in South Africa, but soon realized it was an entrapment operation to incriminate him.

Adolfo Kaminsky never found out who tried to incriminate him, though speculation was that the secret police of the apartheid regime were behind it.

Adolfo Kaminsky subsequently lived for ten years in Algiers, married a Tuareg woman, and had five children, including hip-hop singer Roce.

Adolfo Kaminsky was awarded the Croix du Combattant, the Croix du combattant volontaire de la Resistance, and the Medaille de Vermeil de la ville de Paris for his acts during the Resistance.

Adolfo's daughter Sarah, born in 1979, is an actress and writer who wrote a biography of her father, Adolfo Kaminsky, une vie de faussaire, which has been translated into Spanish and German, and into English in 2016 as Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life.