Justus Rosenberg, a young Jew with a German cultural background, was studying at the Sorbonne when the Nazis launched their invasion of Belgium. Soon after, they occupied the North of France and imposed the antisemitic Vichy regime in the South.
Through his own courage and a chance encounter, Justus came to join the Resistance. First in Marseilles, where he helped artists, writers and intellectuals, including Heinrich Mann, Marc Chagall, Alma Mahler and André Breton, escape the threat of Nazism through the Varian Fry rescue network. He then joined the Maquis armed resistance and later the French Liberation Army.