André Kaminski (1923–1991)

André Kaminski was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to a Jewish family that had emigrated from Poland. His parents, a pharmacist and a psychiatrist, were both committed Communists. He grew up in Zurich and studied history at the universities of Geneva and Zurich, earning a Ph.D. in history from the latter in 1947. He taught at the University of Geneva for a few years. In 1950, as a Communist, he moved to Poland, where he became a television writer and producer and a stage director. He also lived and worked at times as a foreign correspondent in Morocco and Algeria for Polish newspapers. After Poland's government forced Jews to leave in March 1968, he returned to Switzerland, and continued to work in television. He also began to publish autobiographical fiction in German that brought him fame late in life. His 1986 novel Nächstes Jahr in Jerusalem (Next Year in Jerusalem; published in the USA as Kith and Kin), a bestseller, traced his family roots in an anecdotal style. It won several awards, includingthe German Mara-Cassens-Preis. In 1989, Kaminski married Doris Morf, a Swiss politician and writer.