Abraham Polonski (aka "Pol" or "Maurice Ferrer") was born in Russia in 1913. He was one of the founders of the French Jewish Resistance 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". They were funded to the sum of tens of millions of francs by the Jewish Agency and from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.