Identity Cards and Forgeries in WOII

Identity Cards and Forgeries at the National Holocaust Museum, tells the story of two people who where involved in the identity card business during World War 2. The start of the war was also the introduction of these cards in the Netherlands and the death of many people.

The collaborator versus the master forger

During this exhibition you will learn the story of its inventor, Jacob Lentz, and a woman who was notorious for forging them, Alice Cohn. At the exposition you will find an impressive installation by the visual artist Robert Glas. Glas is engaged in a continual investigation of the technologies used for the identification of people. For his work in the National Holocaust Museum, he went back to the moment when identity papers first became mandatory in the Netherlands. Using all the surviving portrait photographs of Jacob Lentz in newspapers, libraries, and archives, Glass reflects on how Lentz made the portrait photo an important tool of power.

The National Holocaust Museum is part of the Jewish Historical Quarter in Amsterdam.