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Most of the Refugees Interned in North Africa Have Been Released, Roosevelt Says

January 3, 1943
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President Roosevelt, at his press conference today, stated that he believed that most political prisoners in North Africa, among whom are many Jewish refugees, have been released.

The President’s statement followed a report submitted to him yesterday by Milton Eisenhower, deputy director of the Office of War Information, who has just returned from North Africa where he conducted an investigation regarding the status of the refugees who had been deported by the Vichy government from France to the Sahara desert to forced labor building the Trans-Saharian railway.

In expressing the belief that the majority of the political prisoners had been freed, President Roosevelt pointed out that he had no information on the status of the Spanish Republican refugees interned by the Vichy regime in North Africa.

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