Deportation or Compulsory Labor in Germany is Choice Given to Jews in France

All alien Jews between eighteen and sixty years of age residing in the part of France formerly occupied by Italian troops and now under German occupation have been given the choice of either working in Germany at compulsory labor, or being deported to their countries of origin, the Neue Zuricher Zeitung, a Swiss newspaper reports today.

“This,” the paper adds, “does not mean that French and foreign Jews residing in France are now put on the same footing as Frenchmen who are drafted for work in Germany. French workers who are sent to Germany are still regarded as workers and receive the same treatment as all other foreign laborers in the Reich. This is not the case with the French Jews and the alien Jews who are sent from France to compulsory labor in Germany. They are handed over in France to the German authorities and are at the mercy of the Nazis.”

The Swiss press also reports today that French police raided Jewish homes in Vichy and in Lyon; this month and arrested many foreign Jews who were transported to an unknown destination. These measures have been taken under pressure of French anti-Semites who claim that Jews in France are better off than French workers drafted for labor in Germany, the papers say.

The number of Jews deported from Western European countries for compulsory labor in German-held eastern territory is estimated here to be several hundred thousands. Efforts to establish their whereabouts have been fruitless. The only thing known here concerning their fate is that they have “disappeared without leaving any trace.” Reports describing conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe indicate that a great number of the deportees are no longer alive, one paper writes.