While the Swiss press reports today that “Laval has promised Hitler to deliver every Jew in France to Germany”, the Swiss federal authorities remain firm in their decision not to permit the entrance into Switzerland of any French Jews seeking to escape deportation to Nazi territory in eastern Europe.
Only one aged woman who crossed the France-Swiss frontier illegally has so far been permitted to remain here. It has become more and more obvious that the pressure of Swiss public opinion demanding that the Government give asylum to the victims escaping from France is having no effect.
Meanwhile, reports reaching here from Vichy tell of continued arrests of Jews in unoccupied France despite the protests of Church leaders and the many large scale protest demonstrations by the local French populations. At St. Fons and at Vernissieux crowds demonstrated at the arrival of 600 Jews brought from the surrounding districts, one report says. Many of the Jews bore marks of violence. In the group were Jewish veterans who fought for France in the last war and children separated from their families.
At Lyon, the police authorities have drawn up a new list of 3,000 Jews to be arrested, another report from Vichy reveals, Anger is mounting at the Vichy authorities who abjectly submit to orders of the Gestapo, and a number of organizations in unoccupied France have issued a joint appeal to the French population for resolute opposition to the anti-Jewish measures. the report states.
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