Roger Moorhouse shares the story of the Lados Group, who forged and issued false documents to help thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust during the Second World War

By Lauren Good

Published: Monday, 14 August 2023 at 06:37 AM


Between 1940 and 1943, a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists created a secret programme to forge and smuggle Latin American identity documents. Their aim? To help thousands of Jews escape extermination in the Holocaust. Historian and author Roger Moorhouse speaks to Lauren Good about this risky rescue mission – one of the largest of the Second World War – which has been almost entirely forgotten.

Roger Moorhouse is the author of The Forgers: The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust’s Most Audacious Rescue Operation (Bodley Head, 2023)