Claude Cahun also know as Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob was born 25 October 1894 was a French surrealist photographer Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914, During the early 1920s, she settled in Paris with lifelong partner Suzanne Malherbe who adopted the pseudonym Marcel Moore. The two became step-sisters in 1917 after Cahun’s divorced father and Moore’s widowed mother married, eight years after Cahun and Moore’s artistic and romantic partnership began.

In 1937 Cahun and Moore settled in jersey Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazis’ crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. They created many of these messages under the German pseudonym Der Soldat Ohne Namen, or The Soldier With No Name, to deceive German soldiers that there was a conspiracy among the occupation troops. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey strategically placing their pamphlets in soldier’s pockets, on their chairs, and in cigarette boxes for soldiers to find. Additionally, they inconspicuously crumpled up and threw their fliers into cars and windows.