Persoonsbewijzen Centrale

The Persoonsbewijzen Centrale (PBC) was set up at the instigation of Gerrit van der Veen in 1942. The possession of a forged identity card was crucial for members of the resistance and for people who had gone into hiding. It enabled them to assume a new identity. For Jews who had gone into hiding, it was important to remove the ‘J’ from the identity card. Dutch identity cards were difficult to forge. The people who worked for the PBC were trained experts who did their work with great professionalism. They produced over 60,000 forged identity cards.