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.'”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
