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Laval Arrests Priests Aiding Jewish Children to Escape Deportation

September 9, 1942
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Fighting French headquarters here today reported that Laval has ordered the arrest of a number of Catholic priests in unoccupied France charged with hiding Jewish children seeking to escape deportation to Nazi-held territory. Simultaneously, Laval ordered the dismissal of the military governor of Lyons for refusing to give any aid to the German authorities in rounding up the Jews. A number of Frenchmen have been arrested in Lyons for organizing resistance to the deportation of Jews from the city, the report said.

The tragic story of how the eight-year old daughter of Bernard Singer, well-known Polish-Jewish writer, committed suicide in Marseille, unoccupied France, by throwing herself from a window when she saw her mother arrested in the street by French police rounding up Jews for deportation, reached Samuel Zygelbaum, a Jewish member of the Polish National Council, here today.

The mother was not allowed to approach the body of the dead child. An immigration visa to the United States was secured for her, but the visa arrived after she had already been deported. Bernard Singer is now on the way to the United States from Teheran to take a position with the office of the Polish Ministry of Information in Washington. He was stranded in Russia for many months. His son was killed in the fight for Tobruk.

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