Jewish Soldiers Mark Passover in Towns Near Maginot Line

This little town in the Vosges Mountains, not far from the Maginot Line, is crowded today with Jewish soldiers. Given a short leave, they arrived here from the front lines to observe the two Passover feasts, last night and tonight, with matzoth, wine and Passover delicacies, and will return to their posts in the Maginot Line as soon as the services are over.

They represent only a fraction of the approximately 60,000 Jews in service, but their colleagues, whether they serve on the front or in the rear, are being similarly provided with collective feasts. Normally they would have been permitted a full week’s leave to spend Passover with their families and friends. Their scheduled furloughs were cancelled, however, soon after the German invasion of Scandinavia.

So here they are in the Vosges Mountains, gathered in townships from which the civil populations had been evacuated at the outbreak of the war. In this town, an Alsatian Jewish soldier, Rene Muller, conducts the Passover services. The Sefer Torah, which had been taken from the local synagogue when the population was evacuated, has been brought back to remain with the Army for the entire week of Passover.

The synagogue, which had been closed, is reopened for the week so that Jewish soldiers from nearby frontier points may be able to come here for Passover services. Collective Seders and services are being held directly behind the Maginot Line, all over Alsace-Lorraine in synagogues which had been closed since the beginning of the war because of the evacuation of civilian populations.

In the Polish and Czech legions, collective services are being conducted by field rabbis. Some Jewish soldiers in the Polish forces are permitted to visit their relatives in Paris.

Not forgotten are the Jewish troops in the French Foreign Legion in Algiers and Morocco. Only a few months ago they were German and Austrian refugees held in internment camps. In Algiers, the Jewish community has allocated 10,000 francs to supply 1,500 Jewish legionnaires in Algiers with matzoth.

Provision has also been made for the civilian Jewish populations evacuated from front line towns. Fifteen thousand kilograms of matzoth have been shipped by the Jewish Consistory of France to the Jewish community in Peripueux, where many Jewish evacuees from Alsace have found shelter. Some will receive the unleavened bread free and others at reduced prices.

Similar provision has been made for the Jewish inhabitants of Strasbourg, who have been evacuated to La Chatre, where the local municipality has put a building at their disposal to serve as a synagogue for the duration of the war. Jews evacuated from the Moselle and Lower Rhine sections have also been provided with Passover food in the interior and arrangements have been made for them to hold religious services.

This year thousands of Jews are celebrating Passover–the festival of liberation–not in holiday attire but in gray and khaki uniforms in which they are fighting, they feel, for a new liberation.

Incidentally, for the first time in the history of Franco-German warfare, the French Government has been spared the necessity of making special arrangements this Passover for providing Jewish war prisoners with Passover food. Although a substantial number of German war prisoners have been taken by the French Army since the outbreak of the war, there is not a single Jew among them since Jews are barred from the Nazi military forces.