The documentary evidence, made public by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, exposing the designs of Gen. Giraud to reduce the Jews in France to a status of inferior citizenship after the war, in violation of the laws of the French Republic, by issuing a secret order that Jewish commissioned and non-commissioned officers and men in the reserve be assigned to special non-combatant work units “in order to avoid having the entire Jewish population gain the title of war veteran” after the war, provoked a sharply-worded editorial in the New York post today.
“While our foreign policy mutters something about restoring the France of liberty, equality and fraternity in reconquered French territories, its creature Giraud utters new orders degrading and discriminating against Jewish soldiers in the French Nonth African army,” the editorral states, “This is the same synthetic voice which ordered the abrogation of the 73-year-old Cremieux Decree, and thus ‘took citizenship away’ from the native-born Jews of Algeria.
“A foreign policy which produces the same results as were achieved by Vichy’s version of Hitler’s Nuremberg laws can only look up with empty eyes when a clear voice of intelligence such as that of Jacques Maritain speaks. This distinguished French Catholic philosopher and educator points out that virtually all the Jews of Algeria are citizens of France, not by virtue of the ancient Cremieux Decree, but because their parents were French citizens. It was the grandfathers of the present generation who benefited by the Cremieux Decree. Maybe these dead grandfathers can have their citizenship revoked-by France, not by Giraud-but under the laws of the Republic, present-day French Algerian Jews are as much citizens of France as Giraud himself. But he says no and the United States says no.”
The editorial suggests that American foreign policy should include the recognition of a genuinely democratic regime for all of France, including North Africa, with the military power subject to a civil government operating under the laws of the French Republic. It also urges the opening of the doors of the United States “freely to the victims of fascism and use of our great influence to open the doors of Palestine, West Africa and other havens for the oppressed.”
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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.
