The intervention of the reconstituted underground Communist Party was first and foremost in the social arena, through the supervision of solidarity operations. Very quickly, in October 1940, the PCF leadership set upSpecial Organization (SO) groups, initially made up of seasoned militants, responsible for protecting leaders during speeches. Immigrant Jews also took part in these groups.
At the same time, others, around Jacques Kaminski, wanted to join the OS groups reporting directly to the Jewish section of the M.O.I. By the winter of 1940-1941, all these groups were operational. They always worked in “triangles”, in teams of 3 militants.
These groups acted mainly against the Vichy government, still seen as a puppet in the service of the Nazis, and distributed leaflets and clandestine issues of the Communist daily L’Humanité.
At the same time, the first M.O.I. groups of young Communist Jews, formed in the summer of 1940, were firmly organized in Paris in December, then in Lyon in January 1941. Many of these young people had been educated in the patronages of the M.O.I.’s dynamic network of associations before the war. Most of them had been born in France, shared their parents’ democratic ideals and felt both Jewish and French.
At the end of March 1941, the first arrests of Communist Jews took place in the capital. From March to May, they continued, particularly affecting young people.
