Anticipating that many Jews will attempt to flee from France to Italy, Nazi authorities throughout France have resumed rounding up Jews and have confined thousands of them in the Drancy concentration camp which is under the supervision of the notorious Gestapo leader Heinrich Brunner, who was in charge of “de-Judaising” the city of Vienna. A report from France received here today emphasizes that “the Drancy camp has become the center where almost all foreign Jews still living in France are concentrated.”
The report states that raids on Jewish homes are now taking place in Toulouse, Limoges, Perpignan, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Beziers and other towns. Panic stricken Jews are fleeing into neighboring woods and villages seeking hiding places.
In Paris, the Gestapo has established a special guard over the Jewish relief office. Any Jew approaching the office is detained and sent off to the Drancy camp. Three hundred Jewish furriers in Paris who worked on army orders have also been interned at the Drancy camp. At the same time the Gestapo ordered the French police authorities in the Paris region to register Jewish children for internment in Drancy. It is predicted that by the end of the month there will not be a single alien Jew left in Paris.
JEWISH COMMUNITY EXILED FROM BAYONNE; JEWS DEPORTED FROM LAVAL’S TOWN
The entire Jewish community of Bayonne, near the Spanish frontier, has been deported to the neighborhood of the city of Pau without any explanation. In Clermont-Ferrand, Laval’s home town, all alien Jews were arrested and sent “to an unknown destination” while a number of French Jews were sent to the Drancy concentration camp. The action was taken in reprisal for an attack on a German soldier in which Jews were not involved.
Gestapo commissar Brunner has issued an order prohibiting the delivery of any foodstuff to the Jewish inmates in the Drancy camp, it is also reported. At the same time he introduced a stricter regime within the camp and ordered the removal of all French guards. At present the camp is guarded by Germans only. The Nazi guards beat the internees for the slightest infraction of the rules.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
