The French Government acted today to save from German concentration camps the 907 Jewish refugees aboard the German liner St. Louis, scheduled to arrive in Hamburg on June 16, after its passengers had been barred from Cuba.
The Foreign Office cabled to the administration of the International Zone of Morocco supporting the appeals of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association to permit 500 of the refugees, chiefly adult males, to land in Tangiers for a temporary stay.
The Gestapo has announced in Hamburg that the St. Louis refugees will be interned in concentration camps if they return to the Reich, but it is believed that this does not refer to the women and children.
As Jewish relief organizations negotiated with every possible European government to obtain temporary asylum for the refugees on the St. Louis and other ships, a number of French deputies introduced a resolution in Parliament requesting that the Government collaborate with other democratic powers toward “finding a humanitarian solution for the St. Louis wanderers.”
At the same time, the Government took measures to check continued illegal entry of Jewish refugees from Italy. Two French fishermen and one Italian were arrested at the border town of Menton on charges of aiding refugees to enter France from Mediterranean fishing boats.
The French authorities in Nice warned Jewish relief organizations that severe punishment awaited all refugees who entered the French Riviera illegally in the future. The 800 refugees already on the Riviera will not be molested or deported, it was added.
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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.
