[2][3] After the Nazi defeat of France in 1940, Les Galeries Lafayette was "Aryanized", that is, all the Jewish owners were removed and replaced by non-Jews.
Théophile Bader and his sons-in-laws, Raoul Meyer and Max Heilbronn, all three administrators of the store, as well as 129 Jewish employees were forced to resign.
[4] In their place, the Swiss Aubert and the French industrialist Harlachol managed the Galeries Lafayette group.
On June 12, 1943, just after an interview with Hardy and René La Combe, Heilbronn was arrested by the Intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party known as the Sicherheitsdienst.
His son-in-law, Etienne Moulin (1912–2004), whom he knew in Buchenwald and who married his daughter Ginette in 1947, succeeded him at the head of the group.