My Father’s Hidden War

This story is not about artisans or fair trade. It’s a story about my life, my father’s life, and how both were shaped by extraordinary events that influenced my future.

It was the end of spring in 1939. Italy had just invaded southern France, and Lucien Kessler, age 38, was working for the Office of Bridges, Roads, and Tunnels in the province of Alpes-Maritimes. Drafted into the French army, he was sent to defend the Italian-French border as a ski patrol, tasked with stopping enemy incursions. For over a year, he fought and patrolled the French Alps, enduring cold, hunger, and isolation. That campaign ended with the German invasion in the summer of 1940.

Lucien returned to civilian life but was soon recruited by the French Resistance for his expertise in infrastructure. His mission was sabotage: destroying key piers, bridges, tunnels, roads, and power lines. Within a year, he landed on the Nazi and SS blacklists—targeted for capture and execution. Jewish, a saboteur, and ex-military, he had to be smuggled out of France by the Resistance via rural roads and villages, evading enemy checkpoints. He reached England safely, where he was taken to a training camp and recruited as a commander of Troop X, a unit composed of Jewish soldiers from both Allied and enemy nations.

Under the name “Luke,” he was trained as an interrogator and intelligence officer. Fluent in German, Italian, Spanish, English, and his native French, he was uniquely positioned to extract vital information in enemy-occupied territories.

In late 1942, Luke infiltrated Belgium on a mission to prepare for the Allied invasion by gathering intelligence from captured Axis soldiers and officers. He was supported by pockets of resistance in hostile villages, operating out of Bastogne with regular incursions into Liège and the port of Antwerp. By mid-1944, he joined the 101st Airborne Division in reclaiming the region from German forces. Once secured, he moved north to prepare for the liberation of Antwerp. A few months later, the Battle of the Bulge erupted—one of the bloodiest battles of WWII, with over 50,000 soldiers and civilians lost. Luke’s mission was complete. Belgium was liberated, and by spring 1945, Germany surrendered.

Luke became Lucien again. Back in civilian life, he returned to a devastated France. He had helped avenge the deaths of countless Jews sent to concentration camps across Europe. In Nice, his hometown, he began rebuilding the very infrastructure he once destroyed. He helped his sisters and mother find a routine amid post-war scarcity and destruction.

In late 1946, Lucien received a message from the British Mandate administration overseeing the formation of the State of Israel: he had been recruited to lead an intelligence post in South America. Commissioned by both the U.S. and British authorities, Lucien’s mission was to identify and repatriate Nazi fugitives—former Gestapo, SS, and Nazi party members—hiding in Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru.

Coincidentally, Lucien’s sister was married to Kenneth Wasson, the U.S. Ambassador to Peru and Bolivia during and after WWII.

Details about his early years in Brazil and Argentina are vague. He later worked in Bolivia as a mining “engineer” for American mining operations, and then moved to Peru to work for Vulcan Mines. He occasionally took “surveying and exploration” trips to Paraguay and Chile. His life appeared ordinary—he traveled from mine to mine, living the life of an engineer.

In 1954, Lucien married Clara Slee, a Christian Catholic woman who worked as a secretary for the mine superintendent. As a child in the 1960s, I believed my father was simply an engineer. My mother took me to catechism lessons at the Archbishop's residence near Lima’s cathedral. I always found it odd that she was so close to high-ranking priests. My father would sometimes take me to café meetings with foreign men and women. I remember them speaking German and French. They smelled of cigarettes and old stories. I played under the tables, oblivious.

We lived in downtown Lima, where my mother owned a store. My father, the engineer, frequently left on expeditions into the jungle to explore mining prospects. He had many foreign colleagues. My brother and I attended a French private school. At school, I was nicknamed “orphan” because my father rarely made an appearance over the 12 years I was enrolled.

In 1972, my father told us he was leaving for a few months to visit a mine in Africa. He was gone for 11 months. We never learned the real reason. My uncle Kenneth simply said it was important. When he returned, he entered the country over land—not by air.

He had changed. He no longer traveled. He helped my mother in the store and spent his time speaking to tourists in different languages. He was a gentleman—charming, kind, and admired for his knowledge of languages, culture, music, history, engineering, and religion. He had a remarkable ability to read people.

Three years later, he announced that we were moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. His sister had retired there, along with several close friends from before WWII. It was a peaceful place where my mother could run her shops.

As he aged and became ill, he began to reveal bits of his past—details even my mother didn’t know. After his sister and brother-in-law passed away, along with some old friends—many of whom were Jewish scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory—his story began to emerge.

We had known about his military service in France and his work in reconstruction. But we didn’t know about his Resistance activities, or that his trip to England was to be trained as a commando for Troop X.

We didn’t know about his mission to capture, interrogate, and—yes—torture Nazi war criminals, Gestapo agents, SS officers, and civilian collaborators. We didn’t even know we were Jewish. He had shielded us from the dangers of being identified as the enemy’s captor in foreign lands. U.S. intelligence and the Mossad remained his employers well into the 1970s. His war hadn’t ended in 1945—it continued until 1973.

He helped capture 53 German, Austrian, and Hungarian war criminals—many with notorious names. With the help of several governments, he dismantled Nazi offices across South America. That’s how he knew presidents, diplomats, high-ranking clergy, and foreigners who didn’t look like tourists. His "mining trips" were covert missions to hunt war criminals in remote, often protected, locations. Many were wealthy and living in fortified compounds. Uncle Kenneth provided the intelligence. The military managed logistics, but my father was there until the capture and extradition—or deportation—was complete. His head carried a price. He was a target, and we could have been too, had his cover been blown.

I was 19, in college, and reluctant to leave Peru. But I eventually joined my father. I went to the U.S. Embassy with a sealed envelope. The consul opened it, smiled, and said, “We thought you were never coming.” Minutes later, another consul handed me a large envelope and said, “Give this to the immigration officer when you arrive in the U.S. Congratulations. Thanks to your father, you’re a U.S. resident. Thank him for his service.”

On his deathbed, my father told us he wanted to live near old friends he trusted—scientists from Los Alamos, his sister, and brother-in-law—people who had been with him through the darkest missions. He was at peace. He felt fulfilled having avenged the lives of the innocent—children, women, and men lost to the horrors of WWII.

My father passed away on January 29, 1985, and is buried in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

He left a mark on me: a pursuit of justice, a heart for the disadvantaged. I can read people well. I can detect a lie like few others. I’m good at math, I speak three languages, and I remain calm under stress. I’ve seen death up close many times. I know how fragile life is—and how important it is to help.

My mother, too, shaped my path. Later in life, I left a career in hospital pharmacy to help artisans find ways to grow and thrive.

In honor of my dad, 

The Quiet Commando, Lucien “Luke” Kessler

Michel