Joseph Antignac was born on 29 July 1895 in Bordeaux, France. Initially a soldier, he became the president of a wood-veneer and insulation company in Belgium in 1935. Fighting the Germans from 3 September 1939, he was demobilized in October 1940. A refugee in Périgueux after the Fall of France, Antignac lost his entire business in the German invasion of Belgium and decided to apply for a job in the Commissariat-General for Jewish Affair. In October 1941, he was appointed director of the Police for Jewish Affairs in Limoges.