On March 29, 1941, the Vichy government created a General Commissariat for Jewish Questions. Its aim was to implement a policy of persecuting Jews in France. Louis Darquier de Pellepoix took over from Xavier Vallat.
The German order of April 26, 1941 allowed Jewish businesses to be sold to Aryans. Aryanization led to total spoliation and extended to all types of property.
In the occupied zone, in the same month, the French police issued green summonses to 6,494 foreign Jewish men. On May 14, they were asked to report to various assembly points for “examination of their situation”. This was the first wave of arrests of Jews, regardless of their political affiliation (many turned up, but 40% did not respond to the summons). The Germans were not directly involved in this operation, later known as the Greenback Roundup.
Numerous internment camps were spread throughout France and North Africa. Initially intended for “undesirable” foreigners, refugees from Republican Spain and brigadists, they also housed anti-Nazi German and Austrian nationals, many of them Jews. Dangerous individuals, French or otherwise, mostly Communists, were also interned.
As soon as they were arrested, the Jews rounded up on the Green Note were imprisoned in the Loiret transit camps of Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande, before being deported. Young and older Communist Jews set up clandestine committees. On May 20, 1941, in front of the camp barracks, women from theUnion des femmes juives (UFJ) demonstrated.
The Communist Party, for its part, reacted forcefully, denouncing the “bestial anti-Semitism” of the Gestapo and police, but anti-Jewish repression continued unabated.
TheCommunist International shifted its focus to the fight against Hitlerism. Following this, in May 1941, the PCF decided to create the Front national de lutte pour la libération et l’indépendance de la France. The aim was to unite all anti-Nazi democratic forces. The movement was not immediately active.
