Worldwide Jewish organization for health care and children's welfare, founded in Russia in 1912 as the Obshchestvo Zdravookhraneniya Evreyev (Society for the Protection of the Health of Jews; OZE). In 1933, it transferred its headquarters to Paris, soon devoting most of its effort to refugee children.
The Effect of the Fall of France
After the German invasion of France in May 1940, the administration of the OSE in France split in two. The Paris section, managed by Dr. Eugene Minkowski, concerned itself with the northern zone under German control. The overall administration, which withdrew to Montpellier in the Vichy south, was able to operate legally, even after its incorporation in March 1942 into the Union Generale des Israelites de France (UGIF) as the Troisieme Direction (Third Department, that is, the Health Section).

The Southern Zone of France
The OSE engaged in diverse medical and social aid activities. Assistance to children and adults was given in about fifteen towns, and in the internment camps in the southern zone. In fourteen homes, about 1,300 children, who were orphaned or placed there by their families, or who were officially removed from the internment camps, were given care. The OSE was able to organize, in conjunction with HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society;) and the Joint Distribution Committee, three departures by ship for the United States from May 1941 to May 1942 for some 350 of these children. Medical assistance for non-French Jewish doctors was also provided.

The Situation in France Deteriorates.
The situation in France deteriorated considerably in the summer and fall of 1942. In the northern zone, the OSE went completely underground and succeeded in sheltering 700 children. In the southern zone, during the "Night of Venissieux" (August 20, 1942), OSE workers removed children from the Venissieux children's home near Lyons and dispersed them among Christians. Afterward, it created an underground network, the Circuit Garel, named after its leader, Georges Garel, which became responsible for hiding children. When the Germans invaded the Italian zone of France in September 1943, an autonomous network was created by Moussa Abadie that worked in collaboration with Garel. With the assistance of Jewish and non-Jewish associations and the support of the Catholic and Protestant religious hierarchy, several thousand children were hidden and a thousand transferred to Switzerland. These transfers were made in liaison with the OSE Union, whose headquarters had moved to Geneva.

Disbanding Children's Homes
The OSE continued to function legally within the UGIF, and at the beginning of 1943 it moved its headquarters from Montpellier to Chambery. The children's homes began to disband only after the seizure of the La Verdiere children's home near Marseilles, in October 1943. The OSE's headquarters and centers were ordered to go completely underground only after the arrest of seven workers at the Chambery headquarters on February 8, 1944. Even then, the dissolution was not complete. On April 6, 1944, the Gestapo, under the direction of Klaus Barbie, arrested and deported the children and staff of the home at Izieux .
Assessment.
Still, the OSE continued its work of rescue. After September 1944, it reopened its homes to receive children whose parents had disappeared, and those who had survived the concentration camps. Several dozen employees of the OSE and a hundred supporters who cooperated in its work paid with their lives for a venture that made possible the rescue of more than 5,000 children.