Around 3,500 Jews lived in Luxembourg before World War II. Many were recent arrivals in the country who had fled from persecution in Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe and who were attracted by the commercial ties between Luxembourg and its surrounding countries and the common use of German language. A significant number fled on 10 May 1940 at the time of the German invasion of Luxembourg as part of the "exodus" of French, Belgian, and Luxembourgish civilians into eastern and southern France. The German occupation regime established in Luxembourg extended the Nuremberg Race Laws to the territory on 5 September 1940 and encouraged Jews to leave. 2,500 Jews had left Luxembourg, mainly for the "Free Zone" in Vichy France by October 1941 when emigration was banned. Many of the emigrants would become victims of the Holocaust in France. From September 1941, all Jews in Luxembourg were forced to wear the yellow badge to identify them in public.