For the American film director by the same name, see: Abraham Polonsky

Abraham Polonsky

Abraham Lincoln Polonsky was an American film director, Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter, essayist, and novelist blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s, in the midst of the McCarthy era.-Early life:...

Abraham Polonski (aka "Pol" or "Maurice Ferrer") was born in Russia in 1913. He was one of the founders of the French Jewish Resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

 movement, having previously worked as an electrical engineer in Toulouse.

By June 1940, the French army had surrendered to Germany. Polonski and others established an underground organization called La Main Forte, meaning "The Strong Hand".

By 1942 Polonski and Labor Movement Zionist activists also established the Armee Juive

Armee Juive

Armée Juive or Jewish Army, was a Zionist resistance movement in Nazi occupied World War II France which was created during January 1942 in Toulouse...

 (AJ), or Jewish Army, which was a commando force composed of the Zionist youth movement

Zionist youth movement

A Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel...

 members. During 1943–1944, the Jewish Army helped some hundreds of its members to successfully escape to Spain and then Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

. The group fought in Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

, Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

, and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 areas, attacking informers who had collaborated with the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 and helped liberate France in the summer of 1944.

They were funded to the sum of tens of millions of francs by the Jewish Agency and from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is a worldwide Jewish relief organization headquartered in New York. It was established in 1914 and is active in more than 70 countries....

.

He went on to become a Haganah

Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

commander of the AJ in France and North Africa.