In September 1939 the French government reacted to the German invasion of Poland by declaring war on Germany. Two weeks later Soviet forces invaded Poland from the other side. While everyone waited nervously to see what governments would do next, physical conditions for Paris residents did not immediately change very much. In May 1940, however, the German army invaded France. The armistice concluded on 22 June 1940 imposed military occupation on the northern half and a western coastal strip of the country, while creating in the southern half of France a so-called "free zone", administered from Vichy by a puppet government under a widely respected octogenarian French war hero. Selma Steinmetz and Oskar Grossmann were among the hundreds of political refugees who joined hundreds of thousands of Parisians spontaneously fleeing towards the south as the German army approached the French capital from the north. They ended up in the Toulouse area. Selma Steinmetz joined the French resistance.