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Forged identity card, ready to be filled in. Anyone wanting to go underground without a trace had to have a totally new identity. PI-MEN provided conscientious objectors, deserters and political refugees with false passports and identity cards before they were taken across the border to France or Belgium.
 Josy Goerres opposed the German invasion of Luxembourg on 10 May 1940. He and a friend, Emile Krieps, decided to resist actively. They participated in the “war of the insignia”, or Spéngelskrich, wearing Luxembourgish symbols on or under their clothing. Goerres also wrote and distributed patriotic leaflets.
From 1941 onwards several resistance groups formed in Luxembourg, but Goerres decided not to join them. In April/May, together with Emile Krieps, he began to support various families in Differdange whose relatives had already been arrested because of their resistance activities. Together with friends, Goerres organized an escape route to France in June 1941. In October he was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo, interrogated several times and tortured. He did not confess and nothing could be proved against him. All attempts to prove anything against him failed.
On 23 March 1943, he was acquitted by a Sondergericht, or special court. After his release he set up the PI-MEN resistance group, which, in addition to helping fugitives to France, also carried out intelligence activities and counter-propaganda. Before crossing the border, fugitives were provided with false papers.
By April 1944 Josy Goerres was once again about to be arrested by the Gestapo. He went into hiding in Differdange and hid until liberation, first with friends, then in a butcher’s shop. His protectors ran a serious risk: one of the helpers was shot and killed in the course of the search for Goerres.