Paris Jews Robbed of Property Worth Ten Billion Francs, Jewish Leader Estimates

Jews in Paris have been robbed of property worth at least 10,000,000,000 francs in addition to household articles and furniture taken away from them during the German occupation, it was estimated here today by Avrom Alperin, president of the Jewish Unity Committee.

Chief Rabbi Julian Weill of Paris told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent today that the world-famous library of the Alliance Israelite was removed from Paris immediately after the German occupation of the French capital. Rabbi Weill believes that the library, containing 50,000 rare books and manuscripts and other historical material on Jews, may be intact in the Institute for Jewish Research which the Nazis established in Frankfurt.

German Jews who managed to elude the Gestapo in Paris throughout the German occupation are now considered by the French authorities as enemy aliens and some of them have been interned in the Drancy camp where collaborationists are being held. The French authorities are ignoring, for the time being, the fact that these Jews have long been deprived of their German citizenship and are now stateless.

Maurice Brenner a representative of the Joint Distribution Committee in Paris, who, using a false passport, conducted relief work for the Jews in France during the German occupation, today told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent how he travelled all over France supplying Jewish underground relief groups with funds which he received from the J.D.C. through Switzerland. He estimated that while the Vichy-established Union Generale de Juifs de France gave relief to about 20,000 Jews, the J.D.C. rendered aid to more than 70,000 Jews in occupied France. In the early months of the occupation, there were sixty thousand Jews in Paris who needed relief, later their number dwindled to thirty thousand, and today there are about 12,000 who need full assistance while another 12,000 need partial assistance, Mr. Brenner said.

One of the pressing problems is securing the return of 8,000 Jewish children scattered in homes throughout the countryside to prevent their deportation. There are also several hundred children in Switzerland where they were sent for safe-keeping.