A General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs was established on March 29, 1941, by the Vichy government. Its purpose was to implement the policy of persecution of Jews in France. Louis Darquier de Pellepoix took over as its head after Xavier Vallat.
The German decree of April 26, 1941, permitted the sale of Jewish-owned businesses to Aryans. Aryanization led to total dispossession and extended to all types of property.
In the occupied zone, that same month, the French police sent green summonses to 6,494 foreign Jewish men. They were asked to report on May 14 to various assembly points for a “review of their status.” This was the first wave of arrests of Jews, regardless of their political affiliation (many reported, but 40% of them did not comply with the summons). The Germans did not participate directly in this operation, which was later referred to as the “green ticket roundup.”
Numerous internment camps were scattered throughout France and North Africa. Originally intended for “undesirable” foreigners, refugees from Republican Spain, and members of the International Brigades, they also held anti-Nazi German and Austrian nationals, including a large number of Jews. Individuals deemed dangerous—whether French or not, most of them communists—were in turn interned.
As soon as they were arrested, the Jews rounded up under the “green ticket” operation were imprisoned in the transit camps in the Loiret department—at Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande—prior to deportation. Communist Jews, both young and old, formed underground committees there. On May 20, 1941, the women ofthe Union of Jewish Women (UFJ) held a demonstration in front of the camp barracks.
The Communist Party, for its part, reacted strongly and denounced the “brutal anti-Semitism” of the Gestapo and the police, but the anti-Jewish repression continued unabated.
The Communist International shifted its policy and began to focus on the fight against Hitlerism. Following its lead, in May 1941, the PCF decided to create the National Front for the Liberation and Independence of France. The goal was to unite all anti-Nazi democratic forces. The movement did not become active immediately.
