While no decision has yet been announced on the person to be chosen for the General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs which the Petain Government has decided to form, several names are rumored as possible candidates for the post.
Cannonic Polimann, who was among the founders of the Paris League for the Defense of the Human Person and who was recently appointed to the advisory National Council, reportedly is one of the persons who will be named to the commissariat. He had the reputation of being an exceptionally broad-minded person and his appointment would be interpreted as a sign of a more liberal and tolerant application of the anti-Jewish status.
Among the other possible candidates mention is made of the well known former veterans’ leader, Xavier Vallat, who is known as an anti-Semite, while semi-official circles express the opinion that the post will be entrusted to an eminent jurist with the purely technical and non-political task of coordinating the various laws regarding the Jews.
Appointment of an unofficial Jewish councillor to aid the General Commissariat is not excluded and rumors are current that the present vice-president of the Jewish Consistory, Jacques Heilbronner, will be given this ungrateful task.
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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.
