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Pogrom Kept Secret; Jew Held Blameless

August 10, 1934
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Moslem attacks on the Jews in Algeria began last Tuesday and were kept secret until they reached such proportions in the city of Constantine last Saturday that they could no longer be concealed, the Daily Herald charged this morning.

The massacres began in the town of Setif, about seventy-five miles west of Constantine, and continued there for three days before the French authorities would admit their existence, the Daily Herald asserted. Many Jews were killed there and Jewish homes and shops were pillaged, the account continued.

The Herald based its charges on disclosures in a letter from Setif received by the Paris newspaper Populaire.

Existence of the riots prior to their outbreak in Constantine disproves reports that the massacres were the result of the one-man invasion Saturday of a Moslem holy place by a drunken Jewish soldier, Elie Kalifa, and corroborates charges made by the London Times and other sources that the riots had been premeditated and followed a careful plan of action.

According to the Herald the anti-Jewish rioting has been widespread and to a far greater extent than the authorities have admitted. The French paper, it was said, is about to publish a document on this of a highly sensational nature.

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