Géo Gras Group

The Géo Gras Group was a French resistance movement that played a decisive role during Operation Torch, the British-American invasion of French North Africa during WWII.

Formed October 1940 in Algiers, the group recruited Jews and French Army officers opposed to the Vichy regime.

They provided a third of the resistance fighters during the capture of Algiers. Its role was to neutralize the strategic civilian and military points of the city, and prevent the Vichy forces from defeating the Allied forces.

The abolishment of the Marchandeau Decree on August 16, 1940 allowed the ultra right French Popular Party lead by Jacques Doriot to maintain anti-Semitic unrest in Algiers. The windows of Jewish-owned stores were smashed during the night of September 11, 1940. On October 7, 1940 the Crémieux Decree, a law that gave French citizenship to Algerian Jews, was abolished by the Vichy regime. 120,000 Algerian Jews were stripped of their French citizenship and were from then on considered "indigenous Israelites". This discriminatory status excluded them from major public office, the military, and professions in the media, cinema, radio, and theater. LICA members, André Temime and Emile Atlan, together with Charles Bouchara and Paul Sebaoun, formed a resistance group in favor of the Allied cause. The group gathered in a gym on Government Square (now Martyrs Square) in Algiers. There they trained with Géo Gras, a former French military boxing champion, and practiced a range of fighting techniques such as boxing, fencing, and judo. Unbeknownst to Géo Gras, weapons were hidden under the ring and beneath the floorboards of the room. He was unaware of his student’s resistance activities. The organization was structured on a French military model. Half-companies consisting of sixty members divided into thirty member platoons and five member fireteams. Among its leaders were Fernand Aïch, Roger Albou, Émile Atlan, Charles Bouchara, Jean Gamzon, Jean Gozlan, André Levy, Germain Libine (future special guard of General De Gaulle), George Loufrani, Roger Morali, André Temime, and general counsel Raphaël Aboulker, cousin of José Aboulker. Reserve officers Lieutenant Jean Dreyfus, Lieutenant Fernand Fredj, Lieutenant Roger Jais, officer aspirant Jacques Zermati and industrialist Roger Carcassonne from Oran joined the organization. The first actions were focused on the anti-Vichy propaganda, recruitment, and the purchase of smuggled weapons. An initial stock of weapons came from the store of Emile Atlan, gunsmith by trade, until the enactment of anti-Semitic laws.

...
Wikipedia