As a young woman in occupied France during the second world war, Jeanne Brousse, who has died aged 96, risked her own life to save many Jewish people from deportation. Working as a clerk at the prefecture in Annecy, she took advantage of her privileged access to identity cards to create new papers for Jewish families so that they could avoid detection or leave the country.

“I felt horrified by the atrocious fate likely to befall all those innocent victims whose only ‘mistake’ was to have been born Jewish,” Brousse is quoted as saying in Martin Gilbert’s 1978 book The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust.

Many French and foreign Jews had come to the Annecy region while it was under Italian occupation, and there they survived in comparative safety until the Nazis arrived in September 1943. The Italians had refused to implement anti-Jewish measures, but with the Germans in occupation, Jews were now under serious threat.

In the same month a Madame Aron came to the prefecture seeking help. She explained to Brousse that her husband, who had fought in the first world war and had been made a member of the Légion d’honneur, refused to wear the yellow star as required by the authorities and had burned their identity papers in disgust at their treatment.

Moved by their predicament, Brousse created new identity cards for the couple in the name of Caron. Word quickly spread of the young clerk’s willingness to help and other Jewish families came to find her. Once she had created a new set of identity papers, she also provided families with a “survival kit” consisting of ration cards, clothes and food. Where possible she used her local contacts to find them accommodation and employment so they could live out the rest of the occupation undetected.

Towards the end of the occupation she extended the range of her activities. Her nightpass made it possible for her to move around the city freely without arousing suspicion. She distributed clandestine press and communicated messages. If she heard of a roundup or acquired the names of young men who had been earmarked by the prefecture to be sent to work in Germany, she visited the families to warn them.

Her actions allowed many young men to avoid the compulsory labour draft and a number joined the local maquis (resistance fighters). Brousse also worked with local Protestant and Catholic clergy as part of an escape line helping individual Jews, sometimes even entire families, to get across the nearby border into neutral Switzerland.

Born in Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille, near Aix-les-Bains, Jeanne was the daughter of Jean Maurier, a cheesemaker who worked at the prefecture in Annecy after being injured during the first world war, and Marie (nee Buffet), a housemaid. Her dreams of taking up nursing training in Paris were shattered by the outbreak of war, and she was persuaded by her father to stay in Annecy.

In 1939, after filling in on a temporary basis at the prefecture, she secured a permanent position as a result of the mobilisation of male employees. Working first in the immigration department and then in the refugee department, she saw at close hand the impact of the Vichy government’s policies. In 1944, soon after the region was liberated, she married Jean Brousse, who also worked at the prefecture and had been involved in clandestine activities.

In 1973 she was recognised as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations”, an award given by the state of Israel to non-Jews for their heroism in saving the lives of Jews. This acknowledgment of her wartime activities acted as a trigger for Brousse to become active in the local community. She visited schools and was committed to relating her experiences in person to preserve the memory of events.

She served as vice-president of the French committee of Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust) for several years from 1987. In 2005 she was made a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur and in 2006 her name was inscribed at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris.

She claimed her motivation for her actions came from her upbringing. In 2011 she said: “I knew that if I was arrested I would be deported. But I grew up in a generous-minded family. I always saw them give and share. My parents were convinced members of the resistance, they refused to accept the defeat.”

Jean died in 2003. Their daughter, Claudie, had died in her teens. Brousse is survived by two sons, Michel and Denis, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

By Hanna Diamond.