Faced with indignant protests, both at home and abroad, against the merciless deportations of Jews from France, the Vichy Government today mobilized all its radio stations in a campaign of anti-Jewish propaganda aimed at justifying Laval’s measures against the Jews.
The campaign, it was announced over the Vichy radio, has been mapped out by the Commissariate for Jewish Affairs. It is built around the slogan “Jews are responsible for the defeat of France.”
“At a time when France is weak and disorganized from war wounds, when the whole future of France and the world is uncertain, it is surprising to see Frenchmen excited about a few Jews,” the Vichy radio said. “We do not deny that from a purely humanitarian standpoint some Jews are to be pitied. From our national standpoint, however, the Jews are responsible for our decadence and defeat.”
The Toulcuse radio, in a broadcast today, stated that the Jews constituted a racial and not religious problem in France. “All the wars of the last century were caused by Jewish powers,” the commentator said. He dismissed the mass expulsions of Jews from occupied and unoccupied France as nothing but “the return of a few thousand Jews to their countries of origin.”
PROTESTANT CHURCH IN FRANCE SENDS APPEAL TO MARSHAL PETAIN
The Paris radio today reported that among the “pro-Jewish letters” which it has received since the deportations of Jews started, was one asking the following “idiotic question; “Why is it that in the days of Jews there was plenty to eat in Paris, while now, without Jews, we are starving?”
The president of the Federation of Protestant Churches in France, Marc Boegner, addressed an appeal to Marshal Petain expressing the indignation of the French Protestants at the delivery of Jews to Hitler, it was reported here today. “No Frenchman can remain unmoved in view of the events occurring in the concentration camps where the Jews are being held for deportation,” the appeal said, revealing that Jewish and Christian organizations in Lyon were refused permission to bring food to the Jewish deportees.
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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.
