I started my search in the archives. At the Dutch Resistance Museum, the NIOD and the Amsterdam City Archives I looked at forged and genuine identity cards, watermarks and documents about how the resistance forged papers. At the Maria Austria Institute I found Eva Besnyö’s work, but nothing of the passport photos she made for the resistance. Staying anonymous was a matter of life and death. A photographer could not leave any traces either.

Collector Matthijs de Die le Clercq showed me his collection of identity cards, including the handbook by Jacob Lentz, the man who designed the Dutch identity card and made it as hard as possible to forge. I spoke with Iara Brusse, Eva Besnyö’s daughter, and with Debora Meijers, the daughter of a master forger.

During the research I discovered that my grandmother, Frederika, made paper writable again after the original details had been scraped off or bleached out. With egg white powder, water and an iron, she smoothed the paper again.