[H.
Reactions
abroad to the Reichskristallnacht / crystal night and
to the split of CSSR]
[6.20. France's harsh anti-Semitic policy after
Reichskristallnacht 1938-1939 with prison and
concentration camps]
[France: Central Refugee
Committee set up (Comité Central de Réfugiés)]
In France the shock of November produced a much greater
readiness among local Jewry to come to the aid of
refugees. A new central coordinating committee (Comité
Central de Réfugiés) was set up under Robert de
Rothschild. They approached the government and demanded
the acceptance of 10,000 Jewish children (as in England);
[Anti-semitic France: The
law against refugees from May 1938 is not abolished]
the committee also asked, in vain, for the abolition of
the May 1938 decree against refugees. Although they were
not crowned with much success, in these actions French
Jewry at last was showing "greater energy and devotion
than before".
(End note 107:
-- Hyman at Executive Committee, 3/22/39; see also:
-- Executive Committee, 1/26/39 [26 January 1939])
[Anti-semitic France: Jewish Refugees are
handed over to Switzerland - and CH hands them over to
the Gestapo]
Government reaction was not favorable. Refugees crossing
illegally from Germany into Alsace were pushed over the
border to Switzerland and then deported to Germany.
OSE, with its three homes for 185 children (there was no
money for more homes), was saddled with 100s of refugee
children "without their parents or with parents imprisoned
for failing to obey expulsion orders. ... Most of them
were between the ages of five and ten."
(End note 108: R59, Troper letter, 5/16/39 [16 May 1939])
[End 1939: Anti-semitic France: 25,000 Jewish
refugees - with 2,000 from Ex-CSSR]
The number of refugees at the end of 1938 was 25,000,
including 2,000 who came from Czechoslovakia in March
1939.
[Help by the Comité
d'Assistance aux Réfugiés (CAR)]
The main burden of supporting these desperate people fell
to the (p.264)
Comité d'Assistance aux Réfugiés (CAR) - founded in 1936 -
under Albert Levy and Robert de Rothschild. In early 1939
it supported 10,378 persons.
[Anti-semitic France: Prison up to one year
for Jewish refugees - only little vocational training]
Persecution - there is no other word for it - by the
French authorities reached new heights; refugees were
arrested for periods up to one year, and "many who have
undergone this punishment have been expelled."
(End note 109: R46, January 1939 report)
Work permits were almost impossible to get, and vocational
retraining did not touch more than a fraction of the
people: in January 1939 the Reclassement Professionel, a
French Jewish agency, was training 224 persons, and ORT
was training 476.
(End note 110: Ibid. [R46, January 1939 report])
In 1939, 13,500 Jews are estimated to have emigrated into
France.
(End note 111: R21, draft 1939 report)
With the growing hostility of the French government to
Jewish refugees, there was a meeting in June 1939 between
the main agencies dealing with the problem - JDC, the
Alliance Israélite Universelle, other French committees,
and the World Jewish Congress. The main problem that was
discussed was whether to start a public campaign in France
to air the issue. The majority of those present, including
Troper for JDC, were against such a course; it was still
felt that the best way to approach the problem would be
through quiet diplomacy. Dr. Goldmann for WJC and Marc
Jarblum for the Fédération des Sociétés Juives, who
demanded a public campaign, were in the minority.
(End note 112: 15-2, meeting in Paris, 6/4/39 [4 June
1939])
JDC rejected the notion that the issue of Jewish suffering
should be aired in public so as to make it a political
issue. On the other hand, JDC continued to aid French
organizations, and especially CAR [Comité d'Assistance aux
Réfugiés], to an ever-increasing degree. France was, after
all, the main land of immigration on the European
continent. And despite the fact that JDC was highly
critical of French Jewry for the small sums being
collected in France, it poured as much money as it could
into France in order to be of as much help as possible. In
1938, $ 130,884 was spent in France, and in 1939, $
589,000.
(End note 113:
-- R12;
-- R21, report for 1938 and 1939)
[Supplement: The French Jewry with it's Rothschild bank
was one of the richest of the whole world. It's a scandal
that the rich French Jewry practically did not help to the
refugees, neither with shelter nor with financing any
further emigration. This ist the proof for harsh racism
within worldwide Jewry].
