The Vichy government is reported here today as having agreed to permit Nazi Germany to send the first 5,000 Jews from Nazi-held Poland to the French island of Madagascar. The settlement of the deported Jews on Madagascar will be financed by the French administration there which will utilize the deportees for forced labor to develop the island.
Explaining that the 5,000 Jews will be sent to Madagascar as “an experiment”, the report states that the Nazis have definitely made up their mind to accelerate the expulsion of Jews from Poland to Madagascar. “Registration of Jews in Poland for this purpose is now being conducted by the German occupational authorities there,” the report says.
At the same time it was reported here today that the last 400 Jews in Danzig, formerly a Free City under the supervision of the League of Nations, have been placed on a boat by the Nazis and shipped to an unknown destination in Africa. The victims included Jewish holders of Soviet passports who were not molested in Dansig by the Nazi administration there while the German-Soviet pact was still functioning. The Jewish doctors in the group were taken off the boat the last minute before the departure and were transported to German military hospitals in East Prussia to attend to German soldiers wounded on the Soviet front. The deported Jews were permitted to take along only a few of their belongings and some clothing and bedding.
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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.
