On September 26, 1939, Daladier dissolved the Communist Party on charges of collusion with the enemy. All cultural and sporting union organizations close to the Party were also banned.
Liaisons between the leadership of the PCF, now underground, and M.O.I. leaders are temporarily interrupted. The Yiddish-language newspaper Naïe Presse was published until the end of September 1939, when it too was banned. The various structures of the Jewish section of the M.O.I. immediately put their documents and materials under cover (stocks of paper, printing machines, mimeographs, stencils, etc.). The practice of clandestinity in Eastern Europe created reflexes…
From then on, the Jewish section’s clandestine action consisted of keeping the ranks of available militants (men and women who could not be mobilized or who had not volunteered) intact, rebuilding the organization, raising funds and disseminating information.
The first issue of L’Humanité clandestine appeared at the end of October 1939; the decision was taken by the former editors of Naïe Presse to also distribute a clandestine publication as soon as possible: a mimeographed recto-verso in Yiddish entitled Unzer Wort (or Unzer Vort), in French, the word of the Jews of the M.O.I. confronted with the war.
