In the April–May 1936 national election, Édouard Jonas won a seat in parliament representing Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, on the Socialist and Republican Union platform.

Thus on 7 January 1939 Le Progrès provençal ran a hostile article titled "Jonasseries" that referred to his "Ashkenazi" Jewish origins.

[4] When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Jonas managed to ship the contents of his antique store from Paris to Bordeaux for safe keeping.

[5] At Vichy, Jonas did not take part in the 10 July 1940 vote on the draft constitutional law delegating powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain.

[7] Jonas expressed hostility to the Vichy regime, and as a result on 6 September 1940 he was stripped of his French nationality by decree.

[10] Jonas was in the United States in September 1942, when he signed a letter sent to General Charles de Gaulle by five members of the French parliament.

In 1944 Göring gave them to Alois Miedl, an art dealer, in exchange for a Vermeer painting (which turned out to be a Han van Meegeren forgery).

[13] The two paintings were Anonymous Portrait of a Man with a Dog and Théobald Michau's Landscape with cattle in a shallow river.

In 1949 the crates were opened and the contents divided between Martin Fabiani and Edouard Jonas, who was acting for the sisters Jeanne and Léontine Vollard.