Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life - Paperback

by Sarah Kaminsky (Author), Mike Mitchell (Translator), Adolfo Kaminsky (Photographer)

The gripping true story of a life-long forger working for the French Resistance and clandestine organizations, told to his daughter.

Subject of The New York Times documentary "The Forger," winner of a World Press Photo Award and an Emmy Award
As seen on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper

"[An] engrossing literary debut. ... Writing in Adolfo's voice gives this suspenseful narrative candor and immediacy." - Kirkus Reviews

Reader's Choice Award -Elle Magazine, France

Wall Street Journal's Top 10 Most Anticipated Non-Fiction: Fall Books 2016

"Every resistance movement had its forgers, but few have told their tales. Many, like Kaminsky, were very young technicians and chemists when they began their work. Sarah Kaminsky's affectionate rendering of her father's life, with all the intricacies of his trade, is a book not just about a remarkable craftsman, but a man who strove to save 'every life that was in danger.'" -Times Literary Supplement

Best-selling author Sarah Kaminsky takes readers through her father Adolfo Kaminsky's perilous and clandestine career as a forger for the French Resistance, the FLN, and numerous other freedom movements of the twentieth century. Recruited as a young Jewish teenager for his knowledge of dyes, Kaminsky became the primary forger for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Then, as a professional photographer, Kaminsky spent the next twenty-five years clandestinely producing thousands of counterfeit documents for immigrants, exiles, underground political operatives, and pacifists across the globe. Kaminsky kept his past cloaked in secrecy well into his eighties, until his daughter convinced him to share the details of the life-threatening work he did on behalf of people fighting for justice and peace throughout the world.

Front Jacket

At the age of seventeen Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was living in Nazi occupied Paris, using forged documents to hide in plain sight. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and his ability to masterfully re-produce official documents with an artistic eye, he was recruited to join the Jewish underground. He soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, working tirelessly with his network to create papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women and children from certain death.

Upon the Liberation and for the next twenty-five years Kaminsky worked as a professional photographer. But, recognizing the fight for freedom had not ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and driven by his own harrowing experiences, he continued to secretly forge documents for thousands of refugees, exiles, immigrants, freedom fighters and pacifists.

"My life as a forger is one long, uninterrupted resistance... against inequality, segregation, racism, injustice, fascism and dictatorships."

Kaminsky kept his past cloaked in secrecy well into his later life, until his daughter and biographer Sarah Kaminsky convinced him to share the details of the life-threatening work he did on behalf of people fighting for justice and peace throughout the world.

Back Jacket

Adolfo Kaminsky, A Forger's Life is the gripping true story of an erstwhile forger who worked for the French Resistance, the Algerian Independence Movement, and numerous clandestine organizations over the span of nearly thirty years. A bestseller in France, the book has now been translated into seven languages and offers a rare look into the personal sacrifices of an idealist, the effect of one man's political commitments on his family, his ingenious methods for creating forgeries, and his unending hopes for peace and justice in an increasingly violent world.

Author Biography

Sarah Kaminsky (b. 1979 in Sidi M'hamed, Algeria) is a French actor, screenwriter and author. She was 3 years old when she immigrated to France with her father, of Russian Jewish origins and carrying an Argentinean passport, and her mother Leïla, a Tuareg Algerian. Her first book is the biography of her father, Adolfo Kaminsky, published by Editions Calmann-Lévy in 2009. It has sold over 12,000 copies in France and has since been translated into Italian, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Turkish, and Arabic. Sarah Kaminsky is currently employed as a screenwriter by several production companies in France and lives in Paris with her partner Alban and her son.

Mike Mitchell (b. 1941 in Rochdale, England) is an award-winning translator of French and German who has been active as a translator for over thirty years. He is the recipient of the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translations of German works published in Britain, has won the British Comparative Literature Association translation competition three times, and has been shortlisted for many awards including the French-American Translation Prize, the Weidenfeld prize, the Aristeion prize, the Kurt Wolff prize, and the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger. In 2012 the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture awarded him a lifetime achievement award as a translator of literary works. He lives in Scotland.

Adolfo Kaminsky (b. 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) made his living as a photographer in various fields: postcards, advertising photos, but also photo reportage on industry (for example, the coal mines of the North and the French sugar refineries). He took numerous photographs of works of art for exhibition catalogues and posters, and he was the regular photographer for the painters who were the precursors of kinetic art such as Antonio Asis, Jésus Soto, Carmelo Ardenquin, and Yacov Agam. As a specialist for giant-format photography he produced photos for film sets for Alexandre Trauner, the set designer for Marcel Carné, René Clair and others. He also took thousands of artistic photographs through his life, but has only recently started exhibiting them.