Emylating the Nazi system of “studying the Jewish problem,” the Laval government in France has issued a decree ordering the establishment of a “chair for Jewish history” at the University of Paris, the German-controlled Paris radio reported today.
Leon Morandat, a leading French trade union official who escaped from France last week, today declared at a press conference that opposition to anti-Semitism is now more widespread than ever. He expressed the conviction that the anti-Jewish campaign in France has caused a lot of harm both to the German occupation forces and the Vichy regime, alienating many previous sympathizers.
Frenchmen in all walks of life, including priests, soldiers, policemen, peasants and workers in one way or another have helped the Jews in France to face the Nazi persecution during the last six months, Morandat said. He disclosed that when the underground movement in France last July heard that mass arrests of Jews were to take place in the Lyon area on the following morning, instructions were issued immediately for Jews to take refuge in the city’s churches and monasteries in the hope that the police would not dare to enter such places. The police, however, learned of the instructions and the next morning all churches in Lyon were forced to close, “But many other means,” Morandat stated, “were found to save the Jews from arrest, which was proved by the fact that instead of the 3,000 slated for seizure that day only 119 were rounded up, the others having managed to escape and hide.”
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.
