Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Churchill Condemns Deportation of French Jews; Promises Retribution

September 10, 1942
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Jewish leaders here today expressed their gratification at the fact that Prime Minister Churchill, in his statement in the House of Commons yesterday, emphasized the indignation felt by the British Government and the English people as a result of the mass-deportation of Jews from France and promised retribution for the Nazi atrocities against Jews and other persons in Nazi-held territories.

Not mincing words in condemning the deportations, Prime Minister Churchill said: “Cruelties, the massacre of hostages and the brutal persecutions in which Germans have indulged in every land into which their troops have broken, have recently received an addition in the most bestial and most squalid and most senseless of their offenses-mainly the mass deportation of Jews from France, with pitiful horrors attendant upon the calculated and final scattering of their families. This tragedy fills one with astonishment as well as indignation and it illustrates, as nothing also can do, the utter degradation of the Nazi nature and the degradation of all who lend themselves to these unnatural and perverted passions.

“When the hour of liberation strikes in Europe, as strike it will, it will also be the hour of retribution. I wish most particularly to identify the British Government and Commons with the solemn words which have been lately used by the President of the United States – that those who are guilty of Nazi crimes will have to stand up before tribunals in every land where their atrocities have been committed, in order that an indelible warning may be given to future ages and that successive generations of men may say ‘ So perish all who do the like again.'”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement