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The implementation of the personal identification card (Ausweis) in 1941 intensified the check on the Dutch population. People who were involved in illegal resistance activities, Jews who did not register, people in hiding, and people who refused to report for forced labour were at risk when carrying around their personal ID card, with which they could easily be identified. In the course of the war increasingly more people got involved in changing or forging personal identification cards.

Personal Identification Card Centre
Personal story: van der Veen
Personal story: Rubinstein and Littmann
Personal story: Westerweel

1. The Den Ouden printing house (formerly the Metropoop) in Amsterdam where fake personal identification cards and other official documents were printed.
   The Gerrit van der Veen group connected to De Vrije Kunstenaar started forging personal identification cards, because artists who refused to join the Kultuurkamer (established on 15 November 1941) could not obtain a legal personal identification card*. This became the basis for the Personal Identification Card Centre, which grew into the largest organisation in the field of forging. Various printers worked for the Personal Identification Card Centre.
   Photo by Violette Cornelius, NFM Collection, Rotterdam
2. Members of the Personal Identification Card Centre forging personal ID cards, Amsterdam 1942.
   Applying cut out watermarks between two sheets of paper.
   Photo by Violette Cornelius, NFM Collection, Rotterdam
3. Forging a personal identification card*, Amsterdam 1942.
   Hand-coloured paper is hanging to dry from the attic ceiling.
   Photographer Violette Cornelius on the right. NFM Collection, Rotterdam
4. Marjolein Heijermans, daughter of the Jewish writer Herman Heijermans, and Carl Anthony Ruys forging papers for the Personal Identification Card Centre.
   Unknown photographer, VMA Collection, Amsterdam