Forged Identities in Nazi-Occupied France

Across Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews were forced to register and carry identity cards marking them for persecution. Forgery and carrying forged papers became acts of survival and resistance. Olga Kagan-Katunal, a Lithuanian-born Jewish activist in France, refused to register and went into hiding, assuming a French identity within the Resistance. Using two forged IDs—one from La Réunion and another from a central French village—she relied on the latter for protection. Throughout the war, she helped produce false papers that saved fellow Jews and political dissidents from arrest and deportation.