{"id":16852,"date":"2024-06-17T10:18:55","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T08:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/the-foreign-volunteer-marching-regiments-rmve-and-other-units\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T16:24:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:24:04","slug":"the-foreign-volunteer-marching-regiments-rmve-and-other-units","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/the-foreign-volunteer-marching-regiments-rmve-and-other-units\/","title":{"rendered":"The Foreign Volunteer Marching Regiments (RMVE) and Other Units"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As soon as war was declared on Germany on September 3, 1939, many foreigners wanted to fight in the French army. They were assigned to various foreign units. After the defeat in 1940, most of the Jewish immigrant soldiers were interned and then deported. <\/div>
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When France entered the war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, tens of thousands of foreigners flocked to the recruitment offices set up for foreigners who wished to fight in the French army (among them, German and Austrian refugees).<\/div>

In Paris, they can register at the Ministry of War on Rue Saint-Dominique, at the Reuilly and Vincennes barracks, or\u2014for more than 10,000 of them\u2014at the LICA (International League Against Anti-Semitism) office.<\/p>

Enlisted foreigners were assigned to special units created beginning in late September 1939, such as the RMVE (Foreign Volunteer Marching Regiments). G. Kenig, for example, an editor at *Na\u00efe Presse*, and <\/em>Boris Holban, the future military leader of the FTP-M.O.I. in the Paris region, joined the RMVE. Other units welcomed foreigners, such as the REI (Foreign Infantry Regiments), which were joined, for example, by Marceau Vilner, a Resistance fighter and journalist. The Foreign Volunteer Pioneer Marching Battalions and two battalions of the Foreign Legion rounded out these special units. In total, there were five regiments and five battalions. <\/p>

In addition, Polish citizens\u2014including a number of Polish Jews\u2014were enlisted in the Polish Army in France (such as Adam Rayski, Simon Frid, and Joseph Epstein).<\/p>

Most of these units fought on the fronts of 1940\u2014in Narvik, Norway; in Belgium; on the Alsace front; and during the Battles of the Somme and the Marne\u2014where they suffered heavy losses.<\/p>

After returning to civilian life following the defeat, hundreds of Jewish veterans who had served as volunteers were transferred a year later\u2014as foreign Jews\u2014to the camps in the Loiret or Drancy. Their destination: Auschwitz\u2026 <\/p>

As for those taken prisoner by the Germans, they can survive in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany (the Stalags) under the relative protection of the Geneva Convention (which defines the status of prisoners of war).<\/p>

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Reference:<\/p>

Various Authors, 1971, *The Jewish Volunteer Fighter, 1939\u20131945<\/em>*. Abexpress. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As soon as war was declared on Germany on September 3, 1939, many foreigners wanted to fight in the French army. They were assigned to various foreign units. After the defeat in 1940, most of the Jewish immigrant soldiers were interned and then deported. When France entered the war against Nazi Germany on September 3, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"salle":[183],"source":[],"zone-geo":[],"class_list":["post-16852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","salle-3-1-the-involvement-of-jews-immigrants-in-the-war"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16854,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16852\/revisions\/16854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16852"},{"taxonomy":"salle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/salle?post=16852"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=16852"},{"taxonomy":"zone-geo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museemrjmoi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/zone-geo?post=16852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}