Identification card

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

1942 (indexed as 1942)

Level

item

Extent

Identification card : Cardstock : printed, handwritten : Ink : green-grey, black, red ; Ht: 11,6 cm x W: 15,2 cm

Scope & content

Double-panel identity card with b&w photo portrait stapled on the the top left. Information has been filled in for Lonia Kawnik, giving her the false identity of Triasse and confirming that she is part of the resistance. There are two signatures at the bottom, as well as two circular red stamps from the Union des Polonais Anciens Résistants de France, Seine branch. Four pink paper stamps worth 5 francs are glued to the lower right side in the space provided. Blank on back. Narrative: Lonia Furstenberg was born on 1914-04-28 in Belchatow (Poland) to Meier Furstenberg and Asha Biblow. She left Poland at the age of 16 to study medicine in Paris (quotas in Poland made it hard for her to pursue her studies). Lonia’s family was German speaking; she also spoke Polish and Yiddish. She had no family in France. She lived in Nancy and Reims before establishing herself in Paris. She learned French while working as a laboratory assistant. She then studied medicine and took classes in all the specialties, but for military medicine. Military medicine required students to learn how to jump out of an helicopter which her father would not give her permission to do. During the Second World War, she was a medicine student and worked in a clinic requisitioned by the German army. She passed as a non-Jewish French citizen and had fake identity paper made to the name of Louise Triasse, supposedly born in Oran. Her resistance activities included caring for wounded resistant fighters, issuing fake disease certificated to young men so they could be exempt for the mandatory labour service (STO service du travail obligatoire) and issuing certificate of good health to prostitutes carrying venereal diseases who wanted to infect German soldiers. She became the first woman to own her own medical laboratory. Lonia was a Communist sympathizer, she was not religious and she eventually married a Gentile, a Polish RAF pilot named Zigmunt Kawnik (born in 1920). All the members of Lonia's family in Poland were deported and killed during the Holocaust.

Location

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Genre / form

textual record

In the picture

DocumentFundraisingHandwrittenIdentity CardMilitaryMilitary CampNursePortraitPrintedSealSignatureStampWomanTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

Do jakich org. Ruchu Oporu należał:a) wojskowychOd kiedy 1942StopieńOdznaczeniaOkręg PariskiMiejscowośćNazwisko i imięPseudoAdresSKŁADKI WPŁACONE, ROKZwiązek Polaków b. uczestn. Ruchu Oporu we Francji 15 Fr.Podpis właściciela legitymacjiPodpis Komisji CentralnejRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

Polish

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2011-50-04.jpg