Editing French Resistance (section)

===Jews===
[[File:Sara Knout 3.jpg|thumb|[[Ariadna Scriabina]], (daughter of Russian composer [[Alexander Scriabin]]), co-founded the Armée Juive and was killed by the pro-Nazi [[milice]] in 1944. She was posthumously awarded the Croix de guerre and Médaille de la Resistance.]]

The Vichy régime had legal authority in both the north of France, which was occupied by the German [[Wehrmacht]]; and the southern "free zone", where the régime's administrative center, Vichy, was located.{{Sfn|Christofferson|Christofferson|2006|p=35}}{{Sfn|Moore|2000|p=126}} Vichy voluntarily and willfully [[collaborationism|collaborated]] with Nazi Germany{{Sfn|Knapp|2006|p=3}} and adopted a policy of persecution towards Jews, demonstrated by the passage of antisemitic legislation as early as October 1940. The [[law on the status of Jews]], which legally redefined French Jews as a non-French [[underclass]], deprived them of citizenship.{{Sfn|Weisberg|1997|pp=56–58}}{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|p=29}} According to [[Philippe Pétain]]'s chief of staff, "Germany was not at the origin of the anti-Jewish legislation of Vichy. That legislation was spontaneous and autonomous."{{Sfn|Curtis|2002|p=111}} The laws led to confiscations of property, arrests, and deportations to [[concentration camp]]s.{{Sfn|Weisberg|1997|p=2}} As a result of the fate promised them by Vichy and the Germans, Jews were over-represented at all levels of the French Resistance. Studies show that although Jews in France constituted only one percent of the French population, they comprised ≈15–20 percent of the Resistance.{{Sfn|Suhl|1967|pp=181–183}} Among these were many Jewish émigrés, such as Hungarian artists and writers.<ref name=ArtProscrit/>

The Jewish youth movement ''[[Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs israélites de France]]'' (EEIF), equivalent to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in other countries, had, during the early years of the occupation, shown support for the traditional values of the Vichy régime,{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=364}} until it was banned in 1943, after which its older members soon formed armed resistance units.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=368}}

A militant Jewish [[Zionist]] resistance organisation, the Jewish Army ([[Armée Juive]]), was founded in 1942. It was established and led by [[Abraham Polonski]], Eugénie Polonski, [[Lucien Lublin]],<ref name=JewishResistance>{{cite web|title=Jewish Resistance Groups and Leaders|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/resistgroup.html|publisher=The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise|access-date=6 March 2013}}</ref> [[David Knout]] and [[Ariadna Scriabina]]{{Sfn|Berenbaum|Peck|1998|p=835}} (daughter of the Russian composer [[Alexander Scriabin]]).{{Sfn|Jackson|2003}} They continued armed resistance under a Zionist flag until liberation finally arrived. The ''Armée juive'' organised escape routes across the Pyrenées to Spain and smuggled about 300 Jews out of the country during 1943–1944. They distributed millions of dollars from the American Joint Distribution Committee to relief organisations and fighting units within France.{{Sfn|Epstein|Rosen|1997|p=13}} In 1944, the EIF and the Jewish Army combined to form the ''Organisation Juive de Combat'' (OJC). The OJC had four hundred members by the summer of 1944,{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=368}} and participated in the liberations of Paris, [[Lyon]], [[Toulouse]], [[Grenoble]] and [[Nice]].{{Sfn|Zuccotti|1999|p=275}}

In the southern occupation zone, the [[Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants]] (roughly, ''Children's Relief Effort''), a French-Jewish humanitarian organisation commonly called OSE, saved the lives of between 7,000 and 9,000 Jewish children by forging papers, smuggling them into neutral countries and sheltering them in orphanages, schools, and convents.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=370}}