French Jews, who escaped from labor camps in Poland to which they had been deported, have formed partisan bands in the wooded sections of the country and are sabotaging German installations, according to a reliable report received here.
The activities of the guerrillas are restricted because there is no effective organization and they lack the necessary equipment, the report says. What arms and supplies they obtain are furnished by Russian parachutists who are dropped in occupied territory from Red Army planes. These partisan groups have made several successful raids on concentration and labor camps in which Poles and Jews were confined, and have freed a large number of prisoners.
Many French Jews who were originally confined in the Drancy camp, near Paris, are now in the Poiniki camp in Poland, the report disclosed. About 4,000 persons are confined in Poiniki in 20 unheated, wooden barracks which lack sanitary facilities. The camp has one doctor, who has no medicines or instruments. The beds are used in three shifts. As a result of the inadequate food and health facilities and the excessive working hours, many of the deportees die daily.
Maroel Deat, recently appointed Minister of Labor in Pierre Laval’s Vichy cabinet, has announced that all able-bodied Jews remaining in France will be used for forced labor on public works, the pro-Nazi newspaper Oeuvre reports. They will be conscripted for work in stone quarries, mines, and canal drainage. The paper complains that Jews are still being hidden in the homes of friendly non-Jews and clergymen.
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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.
