Ochab lived and worked in Lviv until June 1941. He organized there a small circle of Polish communist sympathizers, but in June approached the Soviet authorities declaring readiness to return to Nazi-occupied Poland for conspiratorial work. However, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Ochab volunteered for the Red Army and was assigned to an auxiliary unit. In winter his health problems reappeared and caused him to return to civilian work in the Polish section of a Soviet foreign language publishing institute. In May 1943 the enterprise was moved to Moscow. Ochab became active in the newly formed Union of Polish Patriots there, leading its administrative-economic department.