French Merchants Halt Removal of Refugees; Tell Police Business Would Be Hurt

Dramatic evidence of the value of refugees to French trade was afforded today when a group of merchants in the Paris suburb of Chelles successfully objected to the removal of more than 1,500 Austrian Jewish refugees residing there to the interior. A protest by the merchants that removal of the refugees would have an adverse affect on their business resulted in rescinding of the evacuation order by the central police authorities. The police action not only cancels the removal order, which had been a terrible blow to the refugees, but permits the return to Chelles of those already deported since last week.

It is understood that Premier Edouard Daladier took a personal interest in the fate of the Chelles refugees, most of whom were being maintained by funds supplied by the Joint Distribution Committee. M. Daladier reportedly promised a Jewish delegation more lenient application of the deportation law, which the police have been applying to Jewish refugees with extreme strictness.

Immediately after Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop’s departure today more than 100 leading Austrian and German Jewish refugees were released from police headquarters, where they had been held prisoners during the Nazi diplomat’s stay because of police fears of an attempt on his life. The refugees included Dr. Berthold Jacob, German-Jewish journalist who in the Spring of 1935 was kidnapped by Nazi agents from Swiss soil and held in a Nazi jail for several months, until Switzerland threatened to bring the case before the World Court at The Hague.

Meanwhile, speculation on whether von Ribbentrop had committed himself to French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet on the fate of the Jews in Germany, especially the question of permitting them to transfer part of their capital in emigrating, was running high in the capital. Nothing could be obtained from official sources on the Bonnet-von Ribbentrop talks in this connection.

The Communist newspaper L’Humanite reported that von Ribbentrop notified Bonnet that Germany expected France to suppress anti-Nazi propaganda “conducted by ‘non-Aryans’ and others” Although Colonial Minister Georges Mandel and Education Minister Jean Zay, both Jews, were invited to attend the farewell dinner to von Ribbentrop at the German Embassy last night, both ignored the invitation.