Great Britain, France and Italy declare that Austria must remain an independent nation.
Great Britain, France and Italy again reaffirm their support for an independent Austria.
Léon Blum, a Jew, is elected Premier of France.
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, right wing general Francisco Franco leads a mutiny against the Spanish Republican government. Hitler sends thousands of German troops to support Franco's forces. The Germans use the Spanish Civil War to test new weapons and tactics, especially the Luftwaffe (air force), which perfects the technique of dive bombing. Hitler also perfects the Blitzkrieg (lightening war). Mussolini sends his Italian soldiers to fight for the Republican side. The war will last until 1939 with Franco's victory over the legal Spanish Republican Government.
The Nationalist Rebellion appoints General Franco as Chief of State in its provisional government.
Great Britain and France agree to non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
Hitler invites Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden. Hitler demands that the Austrian Nazi party be incorporated into the Austrian government. He demands that Artur von Seyss-Inquart be made Austrian Minister of the Interior. Schuschnigg understands that this ultimatum will inevitably lead to the end of Austrian independence.
Under pressure, Schuschnigg appoints Seyss-Inquart as Minister of Security. Schuschnigg declares a general amnesty for all Austrian Nazi party members, including those who were responsible for the murder of Dollfuss.
Anschluss (annexation of Austria by Germany). Austria becomes a province of the German Greater Reich and is renamed Oustmark. Vienna loses its status as a capital and becomes a provincial administrative seat. All anti-Semitic decrees previously enacted in Germany are immediately applied in Austria.
In Austria, legal recognition of Jewish organizations and their tax exempt status is withdrawn by Nazi occupying forces.
The Nazi government in Austria prepares a list of wealthy Jews in preparation for large scale confiscations of Jewish property and assets.
France partially mobilizes its army in the wake of the Sudeten Czechoslovakia crisis.
The Munich Conference is held. It is attended by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French President Daladier, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini, and Hitler. Great Britain, France and Italy agree to allow the Nazis to annex the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia is not allowed to participate in the conference.
In Austria, thousands of Jews who are Polish nationals are deported into the no-man's-land on the German-Polish border.
80,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jews are allowed to emigrate to England. The Central British Fund, a relief agency, is very helpful in providing cost of transportation.
Many Austrian Jews are released from Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and other concentration camps on the strength of exit visas.
The Council of Foreign Ministers meets in Berlin. It is headed by Hermann Göring. This policy meeting decides the fate of German and Austrian Jews. This policy will be to force German and Austrian Jews into poverty, thereby forcing them to emigrate.
Jews are fined more than $28,000,000 for the destruction of their property during the Nazi rampage of Kristallnacht in Austria.
In Austria, Jewish children are barred from public schools. By the end of November, a curfew is imposed and Jews are denied access to most public places. Virtually all remaining Jewish businesses and properties are confiscated by the Nazis.
The Mossad for Aliyah Bet [Committee for Illegal Immigration] is established to smuggle Jews out of Europe and illegally into Palestine. They operate in Germany and Austria. They are extremely successful in helping thousands to flee.
France and Germany sign nonaggression pact.
Seven thousand Austrian Jews cross the border to Switzerland, Italy or France.
Mossad agents Moshe Auerbach and Pino Ginsurg, in Vienna, organize the escape of thousands of Jews, often with the cooperation of Eichmann and the Gestapo. Auerbach gets 20,000 transit visas from an engineer named Karthaus to allow Jews to escape through Yugoslavia. Karthaus also obtains Mexican visas from Mexican consul General Gilberto Bosques. After Auerbach leaves Vienna, he is replaced by Mossad agent Echud Avriel. They both later relocate to Istanbul, Turkey.
Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas appoints Gilberto Bosques Consul General in France. He maintains consulates in Paris and Marseilles. Bosques issues thousands of visas to Spanish Republican soldiers who are trapped in southern France. Eventually, he issues more than 40,000 visas to these anti-Fascist fighters. Many of them immigrate to Mexico. Bosques also issues visas to thousands of Austrian and German Jews. Most of these Jews use the transit visa to escape out of southern France. 1,800 of these Jews eventually immigrate to Mexico. Luis I Rodriguez is the Mexican Ambassador to France. Together, they present demands to Pétain and Laval regarding treatment of Jews and Spanish refugees.
Mandatory identification cards are required of all Jews in Germany and Austria.
Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung (Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration) in Berlin is created by Göring and Eichmann. This is based on the Austrian model.
The Gestapo is given control of Jewish emigration in German-occupied territories.
The President of France rebukes the racist policies of Nazi Germany.
A census determining the degree of Jewishness is taken of Austrian Jews. Jews who have three or four Jewish grandparents are counted as a full Jew. With two Jewish grandparents, they are categorized as "part Jew, grade I." With one Jewish grandparent, "part Jew, grade II." This census targets Jews for future arrests and deportations.
Germany invades Poland. Beginning of World War II.
Germany begins deportation of Austrian and Czech Jews to the Lublin district of Poland. 1,672 Austrian Jews arrive in Lublin.
4,000 Jews are leaving Austria monthly. A Nazi report declares there are too many Jews remaining in Vienna and in Austria.
13,000 Jews successfully emigrate from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. 55,000 Jews remain in Austria. Since 1933, more than 300,000+ Jews have left the Old Reich and Greater Reich.
French Premier Edouard Daladier resigns. He is succeeded by Paul Reynaud. Reynaud appoints World War I French hero Marshal Pétain as the Vichy Premier.
10,000 Jews are deported from Vienna to Lublin.
The Central Immigration Office, under Adolf Eichmann, maintains complete control of all Jews in Czechoslovakia.
Germany invades France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. 136 German divisions participate in the invasion. Germans enforce anti-Jewish measures in each area. Soon, four million refugees are fleeing the onslaught of the Nazis.
Italy enters the war as a German ally, declares war on Great Britain and France. Italy's armies invade France from the south.
General Weygood declares that the battle of France is lost and advises the French government to maintain order and avoid chaos of war.
The Portuguese Consul General Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes, his staff and his son, Pedro Nuno, issue 30,000 Portuguese visas to Jewish and non-Jewish refugees in Bordeaux, France. This is completely unauthorized and against Portuguese immigration regulations.
Representatives from the Portuguese foreign office are dispatched to relieve de Sousa Mendes of his post and return him to Portugal to face charges of insubordination. A few days later, de Sousa Mendes and his family travel to Bayonne, France; several thousand additional visas are issued there; Mendes helps these refugees cross closed borders.
France surrenders, and the French sign an armistice with Germany. The French armed forces are to be disarmed. Three fifths of France is surrendered to German control.
Approximately 350,000 Jews reside in France at the time of the German invasion. They constitute less than one percent of the total population of France, which is 45 million. 150,000 Jews are French native born. About 50,000 are recent refugees from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. 50,000 are from the invaded countries of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. An undetermined number of Eastern European, mostly Polish, Jews have entered the country after the German invasion of Poland.
France becomes the largest population center for Jews in Western Europe. More than half of the Jews in France are in the south. Eventually, one third of the Jewish refugees in the south return to Paris.
Austrian and German Jews in France who are interned at Rieucros concentration camp are eventually sent south to camps in Vichy.
Marshal Pétain is installed as head of state with Pierre Laval his Vice President of the Council of Ministers. Pétain is granted executive powers under the armistice agreement and the French National Assembly is merely a "rubber stamp." Pétain abolishes the French constitution of 1875 and dismisses the French Senate and Chamber of Deputies. Pierre Laval is a Nazi collaborationist and puppet. Laval will eventually comply with German requests to turn over for deportation foreign Jewish refugees in France. Ironically, Laval will protect naturalized French Jews.
Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, Brazilian Ambassador to France, issues visas to hundreds of Jews in occupied France. He does this against the strict orders of the pro-fascist Brazilian government headed by Getulio Vargas, and at great risk to his diplomatic career. Several of the Jews arrived in Brazil and were detained by the Brazilian government, but were later released.
American private citizen Varian Fry, appointed by the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC), arrives in Marseilles, France. He is empowered to save artists, writers, composers and other intellectuals who are on Hitler's arrest lists. Fry and his volunteers make contact with numerous rescue and relief agencies, including the Nîmes Committee. Fry and his volunteers also work with various foreign consular officials who issue him hundreds of legal and extra-legal visas and other documents to help Jews escape the Nazis. These diplomats include US Vice-Consul Hiram "Harry" Bingham, Mexican Consul General Gilberto Bosques, a Chinese diplomat and Vladimir Vochoc, the Czech Consul in Marseilles. (Vladimir Vochoc is later arrested, but manages to escape to Lisbon.) Fry and his associates organize escape routes over the Pyrenees mountains for refugees. Hans and Lisa Fittko are among his most able guides.
The Vichy Law of October 7, 1940, strips Algerian Jews of citizenship. They had been citizens for more than 75 years.
Central Commission on Jewish Relief Organizations (Commission Centrale des Organizations Juives d'Assistance; CCOJA) is created to unite Jewish relief organizations. It establishes a communal fund and represents the Jewish community to French authorities. It continues to function until it is bombed in 1942.
The Nîmes Committee (Coordinating Committee for Camp Aid) is created. The organization is headed by Dr. Donald Lowrie, an American representing the International YMCA. It consists of 25 organizations, including the American Friends' Service Committee (AFSC; also known as the Quakers), Unitarian Service Committee (USC), the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society (HICEM), Committee for Action on Behalf of Refugees (Comite d'Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE) and several Swiss relief agencies including the Swiss Red Cross and the Swiss Service Civil International. Other organizations include the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the French Red Cross. The Nîmes Committee unites to bring relief and rescue to thousands of Jews and other refugees throughout France. These organizations supply food, medicine, clothing, blankets, educational material and other supplies to internees in the French camps. The Nîmes Committee, along with its organizations, individually and collectively protests the internment and treatment of refugees in these camps and actively seeks the release of the refugees. The Nîmes Committee writes and distributes numerous reports regarding conditions in the camps. The Nîmes Committee leadership meets with foreign diplomats and representatives to report on the conditions of the refugees. Eventually, the Nîmes leadership meets with leaders of the Vichy government, including Pierre Laval.
The Nîmes Committee works with and is helped by French civilians and, in some cases, entire towns and villages. Monsieur Azéma, the mayor of the French border town Banyuls-sur-Mer, issues identity and food ration cards and opens a house for refugees along the French-Spanish border. He helps refugees escape detection. Monsieur Cruzet, the mayor of Cerbère, also on the French-Spanish border, helps refugees cross the border secretly. He also works with his business partner, who is the mayor of Port-Bou.
The Nîmes Committee and its organizations establish escape routes for refugees leaving France. Spain's border becomes a vital escape route for Jewish refugees. By October, several thousand Jewish refugees have escaped across the border.
French Catholic and Protestant clergy are particularly helpful in hiding, transporting and feeding Jewish refugees. Archbishop Gerlier, of Lyon, Dr. Marc Boegner, President of the Protestant Federation of France, and Archbishop Saliège, of Toulouse, are among those who protest the outrages against Jews by Nazi authorities. Abbé Glasberg, an assistant of Archbishop Gerlier, rescues thousands of Jews. Father Charles Devaus, of the Pères de Notre Dame de Sion, rescues one thousand Jews.
Many of these rescue operations are financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Hebrew Immigration Aid and Sheltering Society (HIAS). They raise millions of dollars for the relief of refugees. Much of this money comes from the American Jewish community. These funds are distributed by Catholic and Protestant churches. Thousands of Christians shelter Jews throughout the countryside. These organizations provide false ration cards, baptismal certificates, and identity cards.
Henri François Deroover, Belgian Consul in Bayonne, France, issues 150 blank Belgian passports to French and Belgian Jews. The visas are filled out by the Jewish refugees themselves, who use them to escape to neutral Portugal.
Boyan Atanassov, Bulgarian Diplomat in Paris, France, issues unauthorized visas to Bulgarian Jews and other refugees to escape France under the Nazi occupation.
Jewish self-help and rescue organizations are extremely active in hiding and sheltering thousands of Jews.
During the Italian occupation of Tunisia in North Africa, Italian officials there prevent the implementation of anti-Jewish laws. They demand that the French refrain from confiscating the property of 5,000 Jews in Tunisia who held Italian passports. After December 1942, thousands of Jews are made to do forced labor under harsh conditions. In the Italian forced labor camps, the Jews are treated far better than in German camps. On May 7, 1943, the Allies liberate Tunis and thousands of Jews are saved from annihilation.
SS Haputsturmführer (Captain) Theodore Dannecker, under Eichmann, sets up the Anti-Jewish Institute in Paris.
Vichy government negotiates with Mexican Consul General Gilberto Bosques regarding the fate of 150,000 Spanish Republican refugees. The object is to send these refugees to Mexico. The Germans object to this plan and are fearful that these repatriated soldiers will fight for the British.
"…[The number of] refugees in Lisbon is now so great that it's almost impossible to get Portuguese transit visas here. The situation has reached such a point that the American Consul has cabled the State Department about it. If it were not for the boats to Martinique, hardly anyone would be leaving at all.
"Then about 7 o'clock tonight a boy from the Czech Consulate came running up to the office to tell us that Vochoc, the Consul, had just been arrested. They think he will be extradited. He has shown great courage, and by his generosity with passports he has saved many lives, including some stalwart anti-Nazi lives. I suppose the Gestapo knows that, and that he is now to pay for what he has done. But will France calmly hand him over?
"Jay Allen has been arrested by the Germans. They caught him at the demarcation line, trying to get back to the unoccupied zone. This is bad.
"Suppose they torture him? Will he be able to keep his mouth shut about us and our work? Or will he break down and talk when the matches are pushed up under his fingernails and the fire bites into the flesh?
"Vichy has issued a decree forbidding all Spanish males between 18 and 48 to leave the country. This evidently abrogates the accord Vichy France signed with Mexico last August, in which Mexico agreed to take the Spanish refugees and Vichy France agreed to let them go. It also betrays the Spanish refugees to Franco. But what is a little betrayal to the men who run France today?
"Captain Dubois, our friend and protector in the Service de la Surveillance du Territoire, has been ordered to Rabat. For him it is a demotion; for us it is a calamity a serious loss. He generally managed to warn us of impending police raids before they happened. Now we have no one we can count on for that.
"Today has been a black one in Marseille. There have been enormous râfles throughout the city. The police have arrested hundreds, perhaps thousands, of foreigners. Nobody knows what is to become of them, but as they are taking only men of working age I am afraid they are going to send them to Africa to work on the Trans-Saharan Railway.
"On our way home from the office tonight we were met halfway up the path to the house by Maria, our young Spanish scullery maid, who lives with her family in the nearby workers' quarter and comes in by the day. She was crying so hard that we had some trouble finding out what was the matter. But when she had recovered herself a little she told us that her father had gone out in the morning to get milk and medicine for the baby, and had not come back. He had all the family's food tickets with him.
SS Haputsturmführer (Captain) Theodore Dannecker meets with Director of the German military rail system General Kohl. Kohl agrees to supply trains to deport between 10,000 and 20,000 French Jews in the next few months.
"Johannes Schnek's dossier has at last arrived from Paris, but the affidavits are too old to be any good. Nevertheless Harry Bingham has agreed to give him a visa if I can get the man who originally gave the affidavits to cable the Consulate that they are still valid. I am cabling New York via Switzerland.
"The Consulate got some more German quota numbers today.
SS Haputsturmführer (Captain) Theodore Dannecker creates a Nazi-sponsored antisemitic propaganda department called the Institute for the Study of Jewish Questions (IEQJ).
Czech Consul Vladimir Vochoc is arrested by Vichy authorities in southern France. He later escapes.
The second antisemitic Statute des Juifs (Jewish statute) is enacted by the French Vichy government. It subjects French or foreign Jews to administrative internment for violation of the Statute des Juif or for any reason whatsoever. The law removes the boundaries between French and foreign Jews. A person could even be interned if "suspected of being Jewish." Further laws calling for the expropriation and Aryanation of Jewish property are enacted. A mandatory inventory of Jewish property is demanded. Eventually, 42,000 Jewish businesses, buildings, homes and other properties are confiscated.
Pastor Marc Boegner writes to Pétain to protest these new laws.
US State Department institutes policies discouraging and interfering with refugees from German occupied territories.
"It looks as though the Martinique route were definitely finished. Have just learned that all the passengers on the Mont Viso and the Wyoming have been disembarked at Casablanca.
The Law of July 22, 1941, gives the General Commission on Jewish Affairs even wider latitude to expropriate Jewish assets and property.
US Congress passes the Bloom-Van Nuys act, which authorizes US consuls to withhold any type of visa if they had reason to believe the applicant might endanger public safety. This results in extensive visa application and screening procedures. For the rest of the war, only a small fraction of German and other European quotas will be filled.
The Nazis order the closing of the emigration departments of the Reichsvereinigung in Austria and Germany. Nazis ban emigration for Jews between 18 and 45 years old. The age is soon extended to 60 years old.
A HICEM Report of August-September, 1941 [The Hebrew Immigration Aid Society] CDJC, CDXIV-39, recorded that 30 or 40 American entry visas were issued daily, [from the US Consulate in Marseille].
Bernardo Rolland de Miota, the Spanish Consul General in Paris, actively intervenes in the cases of 14 Jews who were deported to the Drancy concentration camp. At the same time, he embarks on a dangerous mission to transfer 2,000 Jews from Drancy to Morocco. Throughout the war, he denounced Nazi persecution of Jews. By September 1943, Rolland would be partially responsible for the escape of hundreds of French Jews to Spain.
Deportation of 11,485 Jews begins from the Gurs and Rivesaltes camps in the southern zone. The Coordinating Relief Committee for the Camps (CIMADE), a Protestant relief organization comprised of the Red Cross, the Quaker Relief Committee, the Swiss Service Civil International and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, is allowed to rescue some Jews. Ross McClelland, Dr. Donald Lowrie and Father Arnoux, representing Catholic Archbishop Gerlier, lobby Philippe Pétain to save Jews.
Monsignor Saliège, Archbishop of Toulouse, publicly disapproves of the deportations. He orders a message to be read in churches by his priests at mass: "The Jews are men and women. Not every action may be committed against them. Foreigners are men and women. Not every action may be committed against them, against these men and women, against these fathers and mothers of families. They are part of the human race." This is the first major written protest by the Catholic Church. The statement is widely publicized throughout France. Even foreign diplomats send copies to their home governments.
Marc Boegner declares that the Christian churches in France should not remain silent in the face of deportations of Jews. He meets with Pierre Laval and asks that deportations to the unoccupied zone should be halted and the right of asylum for Jews should be respected.
Jews in Austria and Germany are ordered to wear the yellow star.
The Fifth German Ordinance (Verordnung) blocks the proceeds of the forced sale of Jewish property.
The Archbishop of Lyons, Pierre Gerlier, founder of Amitié Chrétienne [Christian Friendship], protests anti-Jewish decrees and instructs French Catholics to help Jews. Nuns, priests and monks are arrested and deported for their efforts to save Jews. Some are killed.
The Archbishop of Toulouse, France, protests Nazi terror.
After being forced to leave Marseilles, Varian Fry returns to New York City. Fry eventually becomes persona non grata with the administrators of the ERC over Fry's policies in Marseilles.
A Catholic resistance organization called Temoignage Chrétien publishes a brochure that directly addresses the issue of French antisemitism. It mentions the concentration camps, Nazism, and French hypocrisy.
All emigration of Jews from Austria now officially prohibited. 126,445 Jews have been able to emigrate from Austria, thousands with the Ho, Bosques and other diplomatic visa.
The Swiss Red Cross launches a relief operation specifically to save French Jewish children. The Swiss Red Cross has delegations located in Paris, Marseilles, Lille, Lyon, Toulouse and Arles.
Harry Bingham, US Vice Consul in Marseilles, hides painter Marc Chagall in his home, issues him visa to leave France.
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. America declares war on Japan and, the next day, on Germany.
American Jewish welfare agencies are cut off from funding Jewish French refugee relief efforts.
53 Jewish hostages are shot at Mont-Valerien.
French police subject Jews to random checks of addresses. The French have established a file system on Jews that contains information on 150,000 individuals.
2,000 Jews legally emigrate from the southern unoccupied zone. Many cross borders or go into hiding.
Many Christian organizations help to rescue Jews. These include entire religious orders. Among them are the Sisters of Zion at the Hospice de la Vieille Charité, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Dominican Order of St. Baume, led by Father Régis de Perceval in Boulogne. Fathers Perrin and Pipro hide Jews in their houses and issue texts called Voix du Vatican denouncing Vichy policies. CIMADE helps Jewish evacuees interned at Gurs to escape to Switzerland. Fathers Perceval and Perrin are arrested in August 1943 for helping Jews. Father Abbé Blanc and 50 agents provide Jews with false records. During this period, Church people issue thousands of false Baptismal Certificates.
Father Marie-Benoit, a Capuchin priest, works with the UGIF and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to print and distribute false documents and hide Jews. He establishes a Jewish children's refuge in the French province of Var. He is credited with rescuing as many as 4,000 Jews.
A number of French prefectural officials in southern France are helpful to Jews. Among them are Jean Séguy, Marseilles police captain Dubois, Monsieur Roux and Madame Esmiol of the Aliens' Bureau, Marie-Ange Rodriguez, Secretary General of the Cassis Town Hall, Monsieur Boyer, also of Cassis, Antoine Zattara and Georges Barellet.
A number of guards at the French concentration camps take great risks to help Jewish internees survive and eventually escape. Among them are Lucien Mercier, Auguste Boyer, Aimé Bondi, and Jean-Louis Kissy. The Commandant of Les Milles, Robert Maulavé, helps individual Jews. He is later put in jail for these efforts.
The French village of Le Chambon begins rescue work to hide 5,000 Jews. This rescue is led by Pastor André Trocmé. All survive until the end of the war.
Father Pierre Chaillet of the Amitié Chrétienne [Christian Friendship], centered in Lyons, organizes an association of priests and laypersons under the guidance of Archbishop Gerlier and Paster Boegner.
Necdet Kent, Consul for Turkey in Marseilles, France, issues numerous Turkish certificates of citizenship to Jewish refugees, preventing them from being deported to Nazi death camps. On one occasion, Kent boards a deportation train with Jews loaded on a cattle car. He successfully intervenes to have them released to his custody.
The government in exile of France in London condemns the murder of French citizens by the Germans. Jews are not specifically mentioned.
Hitler and Himmler personally order the evacuation and destruction of the old port in Marseilles and, with it, part of the Jewish Quarter. French police and SS conduct door-to-door searches and round-ups of Jews.
Germans order Jews and others to report for the Obligatory Labor Service (STO; Service du Travail Obligatoire), which will deport workers to Germany by mid-February.
SS troops begin demolition of the old port of Marseilles. The demolition lasts 17 days and displaces 20,000 people.
The American Friends Service Committee – Quakers estimate that there are 16,400 internees in camps in the southern zone.
The Seventh German Ordinance (Verordnung) further defines who is a Jew.
Varian Fry writes Surrender on Demand. It is his account of the rescue efforts of the Emergency Rescue Committee in southern France. He outlines in detail the activities of Hiram Bingham, Vladimir Vochoc, Gilberto Bosques and other diplomats who helped Jews in southern France. It is published in 1945.
Himmler orders increased deportations to Auschwitz from southeastern Europe. He includes 100,000 Jews to be deported from both zones in France. The French are asked to revoke the citizenship of the deportees and even pay for the cost of their deportation, which is set at 700 DM per Jew.
French Interior Minister Pucheu orders internment for all Jews who are stateless or are no longer protected by the country of their origin.
Vichy is asked to round up 50,000 Jews from the southern zone for deportation.
Adolph Eichmann arrives in Paris with an order from Himmler to deport all Jews, regardless of whether they are French citizens or not.
The German Wehrmacht [army] has only three battalions (3,000 soldiers) of military police in the French occupied zone. This is hardly enough manpower to identify and arrest Jews. After November 1942, these same battalions will be responsible for deportations in both zones in France.
The French government has 100,000 police, which is the same size as the French army. 30,000 of these police are under Laval's direct control.
Vichy agrees to deport foreign Jews in both zones. The Germans call this deportation operation "Vent Printanier" [spring wind].
Ninth German Ordinance (Verordnung) forbids Jews access to such public places as parks, squares and gardens. It also limits Jews to shopping for food and other necessities to only one hour daily.
In two days, 12,884 Jews are arrested in Paris and are interned in Drancy pending deportation. 4,051 are children.
French Ministry of the Interior suspends issuing exit visas for foreign Jews except for those from the Benelux countries.
French officials order the roundup of between 3,000 and 4,000 Jews in the occupied zone. These deportations are to be carried out by French police.
Germans demand that 32,000 Jews be deported by the end of the summer of 1942.
Deportation of Jews from France to killing centers in Poland. 42,000 Jews are sent to their deaths, at least one third of them from the unoccupied zone.
The roundup of Jews is supported by Vichy officials and accomplished by the French police. Other than Bulgaria, this was the only case in which a sovereign country in Western Europe signed a contract for the deportation of its Jews.
Deportation of Jewish refugees is defied and Jews are hidden in secret rescue and relief organizations. These organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, hide Jews, move them to safe-havens, provide them with food, forged documents and passports. Jews are also helped to escape from French concentration camps.
In Paris, French officials warn Jews of impending arrests and are able to escape.
In the southern zone of Lyon, General Robert de Saint-Vincent refuses to use his military troops in the roundup and deportation of Jews. He is immediately relieved of his command. Other French officials refuse to participate in the deportations and resign their commissions rather than participate.
The Nimes Committee and Quakers, led by Lindsey Nobel, meet with Pierre Laval to plead humanity and to protect Jews. Laval turns them away.
Tracy Strong, of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), meets with Marshal Pétain and informs him of the adverse publicity regarding the deportation of Jews and how it affects American public opinion.
Order for all foreign Jews to be sent to the occupied zone. All legal exit visas are now cancelled. As a result, only 600 Jews emigrate legally in the last half of 1942.
7,100 Jews are deported from the unoccupied zone. This is way below the German demand.
25,000 Jews in France are deported to Auschwitz. Most of them are murdered upon arrival.
Following the mass deportations of Jews from the occupied and unoccupied zones of France, Spain's border continues to be a vital escape route for Jewish refugees. By October, several hundred Jewish refugees have escaped across the border.
The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) are able to get a few hundred Jewish children out of southern France to Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.
Dr. Donald Lowrie, of the Nîmes Committee, gives detailed accounts of the atrocities against Jews and others to close aids of Marshal Pétain. Pétain does not acknowledge the information.
Father Pierre Chaillet and his group, the Amitié Chrétienne [Christian Friendship], hide Jewish children in a number of religious institutions. The Christian Friendship organization also rescues Jewish children from deportations. Among those who take part in the rescue are Madeleine Barot and Abbe Glasberg. Father Chaillet is placed under house arrest for three months, and he refuses to give up the address where Jewish children are being hidden. Archbishop Gerlier also refuses to give the addresses of the children's shelters to the regional police in Lyons.
Germans demand that Laval enforce sanctions against clergy and church groups who aid Jews.
General de St. Vincent, the military governor of Lyons, refuses to assist in the deportation of Jews and uncovering hidden Jewish children, and is dismissed from his position.
24 French prefects in the southern zone stated that public opinion was overwhelmingly shocked by the deportation of Jews there.
27,000 Jews in 13 separate deportations are sent to Auschwitz from both French zones. These deportations are accomplished with the cooperation of French authorities and police.
Pierre Laval expresses reservations about cooperating in future deportations of French Jews by the Germans.
Germany's allies in France, including Hungary, Romania, and Italy, refuse to cooperate with deportations.
Several European and South American governments offer entry visas t Jews. They are Argentina (1,000), Uruguay (500), Mexico (250), Ecuador (200) and Switzerland.
This network throughout the southern zone is established by Amitié Chrétienne [Christian Friendship]. Refugees are hidden in convents and churches. Escape routes are established from Toulouse to Spain and from Lyons, Grenoble and Valence to Switzerland. Clergy in Haute-Savoie become guides. The nuns of Notre-Dame-de-Sion in Lyons provide forged documents. Protestant hostels in Lyons are used as refuges.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer corporation donates one million dollars toward rescue of Jews in southern France.
Italian consul general in Nice Alberto Calisse refuses to cooperate with German officials in interning Italian stateless Jews. He asks the Italian foreign ministry for permission to protect Italian Jews. This prompts the Italian foreign ministry to issue a decision paper that will in fact protect Italian Jews throughout France. Calisse informs Italian police official Ribiere that Italians have authority over Jews in the Italian zone. Calisse is not required to enforce the regulation of having "Jew" stamped in the identity cards and ration books of Jews in the Italian zone.
Archbishop Gerlier issues a public protest about the deportations.
Half of the religious leaders in the unoccupied zone make public statements against the deportations.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, during a meeting of the British House of Commons, reports on the Nazi deportation of French Jews.
US Chargé d'Affaires in Vichy France Pinkney Tuck obtains 1,000 blank US entry visas for Jewish children trapped in southern France. He eventually gets permission from US Secretary of State Cordell Hull to obtain a total of 5,000 visas to the US. Pierre Laval, reacting to German pressure, rescinds the offer to release the Jewish children. The rescue efforts fail.
The German army and SS occupy Marseilles.
Pastor Marc Boegner protests Jewish deportations from France. He personally tries to intervene with Vichy leader Pierre Laval. Laval refuses.
No deportations of Jews are carried out in October due to train transport limits.
Darquier de Pellepoix and the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives attack church leaders for their role in helping Jews and stirring up public opinion against deportation.
Marc Boegner is put under police surveillance.
US breaks off diplomatic relations with Vichy France.
Some French police continue to sabotage deportations.
The Law of 1942 forbids foreign Jews in France from leaving. Vichy closes all of its borders and cancels all exit visas. Vichy ceases issuing visas to Jews.
The Allies land in North Africa, in Algeria and Morocco. As a response, the Germans and Italians occupy southern France. This occupation extends to the Mediterranean coast. The operation is called "Attila." There is no French resistance to this occupation. France is now a fully occupied country. Vichy maintains a limited sovereignty. The SS and Gestapo now have complete authority over Jewish issues in the south, except in the Italian zone of occupation.
During the Nazi occupation of the south, 22,000 refugees are able to flee successfully to Spain. By the end of 1942, more than 30,000 refugees have crossed the border.
SS Obersturmführer in France Helmut Knochen assigns his SS Einsaztkommando [special deportation squad] to regional offices attached to French prefects in the south, including the cities of Marseilles, Montpellier, Toulouse, Lyon and Vichy.
French naval officers sink their own ships at Toulon to prevent them from falling into the hands of the German navy. The Allies occupy all of French overseas possessions. The Jews in French North Africa are protected from deportation.
Italian forces and diplomats refuse to enforce anti-Semitic measures in their zones. They refuse to allow any forced labor camps in their occupation zones. Further, the Italian occupying Army prevents any arrests or deportations of Jews in their area. By 1943, more than 50,000 Jews flee to the Italian zone. Twenty to thirty thousand of these are non-French Jews. Many gravitate to the area around Nice.
The following Italian diplomats are active in rescue of Jews in southern France: Gino Buti; Alberto Calisse, Consul in Nice; Guido Lospinoso, Foreign Ministry Official and 'Inspector General of Racial Policy,' Nice; Vittoriano Manfredi, Consul in Grenoble; Gustavo Orlandini, Italian Consul in Paris; and Vittorio Zoppi.
Hitler orders all Jews to be deported from France to the German occupied territories of the East. This includes enemies of the state, Communists and Gaullists. This order is not conveyed to French officials.
In preparation for the deportations, all Jews are evacuated from coastal or border departments. All Jews, with the exception of British, American or other neutrals, are ordered to be arrested. In most cases, only three days notice is provided to the Jews.
Vichy government orders all Jews to have their personal papers stamped with "Juif" or "Juive" [male or female Jew]. These include identity and ration cards as well as work permits.
The United States, Great Britain, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the French government in exile make a joint declaration of condemnation against the murder of European Jews. They declare their intention to prosecute Nazi war criminals after the war. This declaration makes headlines around the world. Thousands of letters are sent to the US State Department and the British Foreign Ministry at Whitehall regarding this declaration.
The Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross is allowed to operate in the occupied zone of France. They supply food, medicine and other supplies to Jews and others in the internment camps. In addition, the Commission tries to help Jews by redefining their legal status by having them declared prisoners of war and entitled to protections under the Geneva Convention. The Red Cross is able to improve some of the conditions in the camps.
The French Red Cross provides relief to Jewish prisoners at the internment camps at Hôtel Terminus des Ports, Bombard, and Les Milles.
The Red Cross and Quaker missions continue to collect information on internees and conditions in the camps. They report these conditions to the Allies.
Carvalho da Silva, Vice Consul for Portugal in Paris, France, personally intervenes on behalf of 40 Portuguese Jews who are at the deportation center of Drancy, France. He convinces the Gestapo to free them and personally accompanies the group through a border crossing of France into Spain. He rescues a second group of about 100 Jews, and accompanies them across the border as well.
Mexican Consul General Gilberto Bosques, Mexican Ambassador Luis I. Rodriguez, and the entire Mexican legation are arrested by German and French officials. The Brazilian Ambassador and the Brazilian legation are also arrested. The diplomats and their families are interned in the German city of Bad Godesberg for a year. This action is in violation of international conventions.
Antoine Zattara, at the prefecture in Marseilles, helps many Jews escape the Nazis. Zattara is arrested and deported by the Gestapo in 1944.
French Interior Ministry declares in a circular that it has the authority to assign all foreign Jewish men who came to France after 1936 to labor battalions and work groups.
When the German army occupies Marseilles, they arrest and intern members of the Quaker, Unitarian and Mennonite committees in Baden Baden, Germany. All legal and semi-legal rescue groups in Marseilles are shut down.
Ten thousand French police and several thousand German soldiers are sent to move the 22,000 residents of the old port of Marseilles and destroy it. In the process, 2,000 Jews are arrested.
There may be as many as 140,000 Jews in the south of France, not including the Italian zone. Jews are completely protected in the Italian sector.
French police are ordered to round up French and foreign Jews and send them to the Gurs concentration camp, and then to Drancy. The Germans have limited success in this action due to increasing French resistance.
In Lyons, France, occupying Italian soldiers order local French chief of police to rescind German deportation order.
German and SS authorities are increasingly dissatisfied with French and Italian cooperation in the deportations.
Italian police in the cities of Valence, Chambery and Anecy prevent French prefects from arresting Jews in their zones.
The US State Department blocks the rescue of 70,000 Jews from France and Romania by refusing to transfer money to support a plan worked out by Gerhardt Riegner of the World Jewish Congress. Funds are blocked in Swiss bank accounts until the end of the war. Agents of the Treasury Department discover this intentional delaying of the transfer of money. They determine that this is being done by Breckinridge Long and other officials at the State Department. A report on these activities is eventually submitted to Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury. Morgenthau submits this report to President Roosevelt, which eventually leads to the creation of the War Refugee Board.
In Grenoble, Italian soldiers protect Jewish internees about to be deported. They are released from custody.
SS Obersturmführer Heinz Röthke estimates there are 270,000 Jews remaining in France, including 200,000 in the southern zone. He hopes to deport 8,000-10,000 Jews per week beginning in April.
Under new ordinances, Germans are free to arrest Jews without French police present.
Mussolini transfers authority over Jews from the Italian army to the Italian ministry of the interior. He appoints Guido Lospinoso Commissioner for Jewish Questions in Nice. Lospinoso does everything in his power to thwart German plans to deport Jews. He is successful in helping Jews through September 1943. He works closely with Jewish banker and rescuer Angelo Donati and Catholic monk Father Benoit. Benoit operates out of a monastery in Marseilles.
SS begins large scale arrests of Jews in Nîmes, Avignon, Carpentras and Aix. The arrested Jews are taken from Marseilles to Drancy.
The secret organization, National Resistance Council, is created in France. Jean Moulin is its head.
Daniel Bénédite takes the name Pierre Benedetti and works with the French underground.
Eichmann sends his SS assistant Alois Brunner to Paris with 25 men to speed up the deportations. Brunner takes over operations at the Drancy camp. Vichy announces it will no longer actively cooperate with the Germans in the arrest of French Jews.
The Marseilles Gestapo reports that Italian police commissioner Guido Lospinoso has moved between 20,000 and 50,000 Jews out of the German area to Megéve, St. Gervain and Vence, which are Italian protected areas.
Catholic priest Father Marie-Benoit has audience with Pope Pius XII. He presents the Pope with documents regarding the persecution of Jews in France. He asks for assistance in rescuing Jews in the Italian occupied zone in France. Working with Jewish Italian businessman Angelo Donati, he begins preparation for evacuating 30,000 Jews from the south of France to Italy, Spain and North Africa. The project is approved by the Vatican, by Sir Arcy Osborne, the British Ambassador to the Holy See, and by Harold Tittman, US Ambassador to the Vatican. The evacuation plan fails due to the Italian withdrawal from the war on September 8, 1943.
Jean Changeneau, police prefect of the Alpes Maritimes, replaces French policeman Ribiere. Changeneau announces that he will protect Jews in his area.
Mussolini agrees to withdraw from the Italian zones in southern France, except for the area around Nice.
The Italian government surrenders to the Allies and withdraws from the war. Italian Armed Forces in Yugoslavia, southern France and parts of Greece return to Italy. Thousands of Jewish refugees attempt to flee with them.
German army occupies former Italian zone in southern France. Thousands of Jews are trapped around Nice. Nazis are free to round up Jews.
Breckinridge Long continues his campaign against Jewish immigration to the United States. He gives misleading testimony about immigration before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Between December 1941 and the end of the war, only 21,000 refugees are admitted to the US and they comprise only ten percent of the US quota available for Axis-controlled countries.
40 deportation trains leave France for Auschwitz. There are no deportations in December and January 1943-1944.
Several French prefects destroy the Jewish census and registration files. Refugees are helped by French citizens to flee to the Spanish border by sympathetic French police and civilian officials.
Gerhardt Riegner is finally given a license to transfer funds from Jewish agencies for the relief and rescue of the Jews of Romania and France. This is eight months after Riegner first requested permission from the US State Department to do so.
The Representative Council of French Jewry (Conseil Représentatif des Juifs de France; CRIF) is founded to coordinate rescue activities among Jewish groups. They work with the Armée Juive to arrange rescue of Jews through Spain. They also participate with the French underground, both in the north and the south.
Early in 1944, US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt manages to have the Turkish government intercede on behalf of ten thousand Turkish Jews living in France. Steinhardt uses his good relationship with Turkish foreign minister Noman Menenencioglu in helping to untangle bureaucratic rules that prevented Jews from passing through Turkey as an escape route. Hirschmann and Steinhardt are able to get Turkish official in charge of visas, Kemel Aziz Payman, to liberalize some of the Turkish immigration laws.
Two transports leave France for Auschwitz.
The SS conduct arrests without the help of French police. As a result, the arrests are way below German anticipated quotas.
Only one transport leaves France for Auschwitz.
D-Day: Operation Overlord is launched. Allied invasion at Normandy, in northwestern France, opens second front. Seven Allied divisions attack in the largest amphibious operation in history. The invasion involves more than 4,000 ships and 1,000 transport planes.
Deportations from France are halted.
The Allied Armies capture the city of Caen in Normandy, France.
Operation Anvil. Allied forces land on the south coast of France. They quickly advance 20 miles on the first day.
Marshal Philippe Pétain, former head of the Vichy government, is convicted in a French court of treason and is sentenced to death. His sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment.
US forces break out of the German defenses in western Normandy.
Drancy transit camp, on the outskirts of Paris, is liberated.
Paris is liberated by the Allies. De Gaulle leads victory parade.
The total number of Jews deported and murdered in France is 75,000. This is out of more than 375,000 Jews in France. 80% of Jews in France survived the war. This is one of the highest survival rates for a Jewish community in a Nazi-occupied territory. 86% of native French Jews survive; 72% of foreign born Jews survive. There are countless testimonies and evidence to indicate that many of the Jews, especially foreign Jews, escaped arrest and deportation and survived the war with the help of courageous individuals, willing to risk their life and liberty by breaking the law to follow their conscience. Individuals hid Jews in the cities, villages, towns and in remote areas of the country. French officials overlooked irregular papers and documents to get Jews housing, food and medicine. Religious leaders throughout France extended a hand of help. They provided food, shelter, and false baptismal certificates. Many organizations, including the member groups of the Nîmes Committee, put themselves at considerable risk to save hundreds of thousands of Jews throughout France. Without their help, most Jews would not have survived.
Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of France in Vichy, is convicted in a French court of treason. He is sentenced to death.
Daniel Bénédite of the ERC is awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
Varian Fry is honored at the French consulate in New York City with the Croix de Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. Fry is honored for the work he had done for France.
Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV passes away.
French President Francois Mitterand publicly denounces the actions of the French Vichy government during World War II.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum opens in Washington, DC. Its first traveling exhibit honors Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee.
Harry Bingham is honored in the Visas for Life exhibit for his work in helping Jewish refugees in Marseilles in 1940-1941.
Harry Bingham is nominated for the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Visas for Life Project.
Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project nominates members of the Emergency Rescue Committee as Righteous Among the Nations.
United States Postal Service announces it will issue a commemorative postage stamp in honor of Hiram "Harry" Bingham. The stamp will be issued in spring 2006.
Harry Bingham receives Letter of Recognition from Yad Vashem for his activities in Marseilles on behalf of Jews.
Many refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied territories left their countries illegally without passports, papers or identity cards. Local consuls and diplomats could issue an affidavit in lieu of passport as a means of providing refugees with a document that could legally allow them to cross international borders.
German: "Annexation"; German annexation of Austria by Germany on March 13, 1938. It was accomplished by popular vote. It put approximately 189,000 Austrian Jews under German rule. Many thousands fled to Southern France, especially after the Kristallnacht action of November 10, 1938.
Jewish Army. Founded by Abraham Polonski and Lucien Lubin in France in 1942.
The Armistice Commission located in Wiesbaden negotiated the Pence Treaty between Germany and France in 1940. It was composed of German and French military, diplomats and economic specialists.
Clause of the German-French Armistice agreement of June 1940. Stipulated that the French were obliged to "surrender on demand" German nationals on French soil to the German occupying government.
Expropriation – confiscation of Jewish property, businesses and money in Germany and German-occupied Europe. Under these laws and the French Statut des Juifs, more than 42,000 Jewish businesses and properties were confiscated in France.
Vrba-Wetzler Report. Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1943. They successfully escaped to Slovakia, where they prepared an elaborate report of the murder of Jews. The report was translated into numerous languages and sent around the world.
Political and military alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan. It also included Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland and Slovakia.
French: "Sub"; A French term for Jews in hiding (referring to "submarine"). Jews in France who posed as Aryans in order to avoid arrest and deportation. There were elaborate networks to hide these Jews and provide them with false documents.
Cooperation of French citizens and German occupying forces. Collaboration between French officials or private citizens and the Nazi government enabled them to Aryanize Jewish businesses, enforce antisemitic laws, and arrest and deport Jews and other enemies of the Nazis to the concentration and death camps.
Law passed October 1870 making Algerian Jews citizens of France. The Vichy government reversed the law in 1940.
The Nazi government built six camps that were used as killing centers for Jews and others. Jews from France were deported to three of these camps: Sobibor, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. 75,000 Jews from France were murdered in these camps.
Delegazione de Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei (Delegation for the Assistance of Immigrants). Jewish rescue and relief agency founded in Italy in December 1939. It operated in France and throughout Italy until September 1943.
Transit camp. Place from which Jews and others were sent to concentration or death camps.
German: German State Railroad. Responsible for transporting deportees to the death camps in Poland. 77 deportation trains left France between 1941-1944.
Mostly located in occupied France, these centers held interned Jews and others prior to deportation. Centers were run by Vichy officials.
Transit camp located in suburb of Paris, established in 1940. 74,000 Jews in France were deported to Auschwitz from this camp. 11,000 were children. 5,000 Jews were from Belgium. Drancy was a French camp until July 1943.
Also "unblocked visa." The US State Department authorized consuls in France to issue a limited number of visas outside of the US quota system. Several hundred of these special visas were issued to artists, writers, intellectuals trapped in Southern France, particularly in Marseilles.
French: "Purge" – Postwar trials of collaborators in France. Between 1945-1946, 39,000 trials for collaborators were held in France.
Conference held in the French resort town of Evian, July 6-15, 1938. It was attended by 33 countries. Its purpose was to resolve the refugee crisis that resulted from the German annexation of Austria and thousands of Jews fleeing from Germany and Czechoslovakia. Virtually nothing of substance was accomplished at this conference, as no countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees.
More than 700,000 French people were impressed by the German government to work for the Nazi war industries.
French: Brotherhood. Pro-Jewish newspaper published in Southern France. Cooperated with MNCR to fight anti-Semitism and advocated helping Jews to avoid deportation.
French armed forces under General Charles de Gaulle. Fought for the liberation of France.
French: constables, French police. Many collaborated with German occupying forces to enforce antisemitic policy and aid in round-ups and deportations.
German: Geheime Staatspolizei; German State Secret Police. Headed by SS General Heinrich Mueller. IVB4 was a department of the Gestapo.
French: The Grand Roundup. 12,884 Jews, 4,000 of them children, were arrested in the Paris area on July 16-17, 1942. Most were sent to the Auschwitz death camp, where they were murdered on arrival.
Germany and Austria after annexation.
Labor battalions authorized by Vichy law to work prisoners or war. Supervised by the French Ministry of Industrial Production and Labor. Jews and former Spanish Republican soldiers were impressed into these foreign labor units.
Hebrew: "Training"; agricultural training farm. Several of these farms were located in Southern France.
Hebrew: "Young Guard"; Socialist-Zionist Youth Movement; organized to help young Jews train for life on collective farms (kibbutzim) in Palestine (Israel); many became partisans and rescuers during the war.
Righteous Among the Nations; Righteous Person.
Hebrew: "Pioneer." Jewish youth organization that helped prepare young Jews for immigration to Palestine.
Volunteers from all over the world who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Many were Jewish.
Established in 1939 in France to detain Spanish Republican soldiers and refugee aliens. Run by French officials and police forces.
Gestapo and SS "Jewish Office," headquartered in Berlin, in charge of arrest and deportation of Jews in France and other occupied countries. Headed by SS Colonel Adolph Eichmann, his deputies were Dieter Wisliceny and Major Alois Brunner.
Stood for Juif (Jew). Stamped on German, Austrian and Czech passports.
French: "I Accuse"; pro-Jewish newspaper published in Paris. Cooperated with MNCR to fight anti-Semitism and advocated helping Jews to avoid deportation.
Jewish Agency for Palestine. Established in 1921 to establish Jewish self rule in the British Mandate of Palestine. It set up Palestine Offices to promote immigration to Palestine.
Department of Jewish Affairs in RSHA office, Paris. Headed by SS Hauptsturmführer Theodore Dannecker (Bureau IVB4). Responsible for planning and implementing anti-Jewish actions and deportations.
French: Jew. In France, Jews had their papers and documents stamped with the word "Juif" in large red letters.
Konzentrationslager (G.); concentration camp. There were thousands of these camps throughout Nazi occupied Europe.
Headed by German diplomat Dr. Kundt, the Commission was a detachment of Gestapo and German officials that searched French internment camps for those wanted by the German government. They arrested 800 persons.
Loi Marchandeau. A French law passed in 1881 that outlawed press attacks "toward a group of persons who belong by origin to a particular race or religion when it intended to arouse hatred among citizens or residents. This law was repealed by the Vichy government on August 27, 1940. This allowed virulent antisemitic attacks on the Jews in France.
French: Militia. French paramilitary force of 30,000 formed by Vichy government in 1943. Led by Joseph Darnand and Paul Touvier. Participated in round up and deportation of Jews.
German: Military Command in France; MBF. Headed by General Otto von Stülpnagel, 1940 and Karl Heinrich von Stülpnagel 1942-1944. The civil administrative director was SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Werner T. Best, 1940-1942.
Jewish underground organization, often operated illegally to smuggle Jews from Europe to Palestine.
Quota. In France, quota systems were used to exclude Jews from professions, businesses and schools.
Area occupied by the German Army and civil government. This comprised most of Northern France and the border along Spain.
Palestine Office. Palestine Offices, located throughout Europe (usually in capitols), issued Palestine Certificates. These were staffed by Jewish volunteers from Palestine.
A certificate issued by the Yishuv, and authorized by the British mandatory government, that allowed Jews in Europe to immigrate legally to Palestine.
Resistance fighters against German occupying forces.
French word for guide. These were individuals who guided refugees across international borders.
Official document issued by a country of origin for an individual.
German: Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Reich Security Main Office. Combined offices of Nazi Gestapo (Secret Police), Security Service (SD) and Police (SIPO). Headed by SS General Reinhard Heydrich and later Ernst Kaltenbrunner. It coordinated the final solution for the murder of Jews of Europe and millions of others. In France, the RSHA office was headed by SS Obersturmführer Helmut Knochen. He was responsible to Himmler and the SS office in Berlin. Other RSHA officers were SS-Sturmbannführers Herbert Martin Hagen and Kurt Liska, SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodore Dannecker. Coordinated the murder of more than 75,000 Jews in France.
Individual displaced from his or her country of origin.
Non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Official title and honor created by the State of Israel in 1953.
French: Forced Work Force. In February 1943, Vichy government passed a law forcing selected French men and women to work in Germany.
Volunteers from Spain and other countries who fought against Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. When the war ended, thousands of Spanish Republicans fled to Southern France. Many were interned in the French camps of Gur and Le Vernet.
French: Jewish Statute. Group of antisemitic laws first enacted by the Vichy government on October 3, 1940. These and subsequent laws were applied against Jews in France and the French territories of Tunisian Algeria, and Morocco in North Africa. Combined with the German Aryanization laws, Jews were effectively removed from public and economic life in France.
Area of Southern France not occupied by German forces June 1940-September 1943.
Sports arena in suburbs of Paris. On July 16-17, 1942, 13,000 Jews were arrested and imprisoned here pending deportation.
Resort town in Southern France, in the unoccupied zone. Established as the headquarters of the French government let by Martial Philippe Pétain. Government until German occupation in November 1942.
Document that permitted bearer to travel through, enter and exit a country. There were entry, exit and transit visas. Visas could be attached to or stamped in passports.
Hebrew: "Settlement"; Prewar Jewish Community in Palestine/Israel. Established under British mandate by League of Nations in 1921.
Jewish youth organization that prepared Jews to emigrate to Palestine.
Underground rescue network headed by Joop Westerweel* (1899-1944), a Dutch Christian. Working with Jewish groups, it smuggled Jews from France into Spain. Westerweel was shot in 1944 by Germans.
Fittko, Lisa, translated by David Koblick. Escape Through the Pyrenees. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991).
Friedman, Saul S. No Haven for the Oppressed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973).
Hockley, Ralph M. Freedom is not Free. (2000).
Kraut, Alan M., and Richard Breitman. American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
Wyman, David S. Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1939-1941. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968).
US National Archives and Records Administration. State Department documents: RG 59 (740.00011) European War; Central Decimal File 837.55J and 840.48 Refugees; RG 84 Records of the Vichy Embassy and Marseilles consulate.
US National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. General records of the Department of State (RG59), files 840.48 Refugees and 811.111 Refugees.
Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD: Records of the Department of State visa division (RG59), files 811.111 Refugees.
The Varian Fry Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, especially box 7, folders "American Consulates in Europe" and "American Embassy, Vichy" and box 18, "Visa Policy, US" and Feuchtwanger files.
The recollections of those personally involved: Albert O. Hirschmann and Charles Fawcett, both employees of Centre Américain de Secours still alive, as well as at least eight oral histories deposited in the USHMM oral history collection.
This communication shows the ambivalence by the US consulates in Vichy France regarding the helping of refugees by relief agencies.
On December 24, 1941, Varian Fry wrote from his home in New York City to his replacement in Marseille, Daniel Bénédite. He complains about Dr. Frank Kingdon, head of the ERC in New York City, and of Fry's relationship with the US State Department.
On February 2, 1942, Varian Fry wrote from his home in New York City to his replacement in Marseille, Daniel Bénédite.
This case illustrates how long it takes to get a visa cleared through normal channels at the State Department.
On May 28, 1942, Varian Fry wrote from his home in New York City to Daniel Bénédite in Marseille. Fry wrote about the visa situation.
In an unpublished portion of his manuscript, Varian Fry writes about his difficulties with the American embassy and consulate in southern France.
"When Ambassador Leahy first arrived in France to take up his post, I wrote him a letter, asking for an appointment. My letter was never answered. When the Ambassador visited Marseilles a few weeks later, I was the only American relief worker there who did not have an opportunity to meet him.
"For the most part, I suppose the people in Washington sit in quiet offices dealing with papers. It may be boring, it probably is excrutiatingly boring, but it doesn't tear their hearts out, it doesn't take their souls and twist them like towels until they can hear the fibres crack. We are here day after day, surrounded by nervous, hysterical and driven refugees who come to us day after day and ask us when, when, when, will their visas come. And all we can tell them is we don't know.
"If someone could only get to the men in the State Department who are holding the visas up and try to give them some idea of what their action—or is it their inaction?—means in terms of human stress and misery, perhaps he could get some action visas out of them. He should tell them about the suicides—we have had seven already. He should tell them abut the nervous breakdowns. One of the most successful criminal lawyers of the German Republic broke down and cried like a baby in my office yesterday. He should tell them about the growing impoverishment of those people, who are cut off not only from their funds but from all chances of earning a living. He should tell them about the frightful conditions in the camps, the high mortality rate, the tuberculosis, the lice, the fleas, the dysentery, the typhoid. And he should tell them that it is to this that their action or inaction is condemning the cream of Europe.
"I realize they want to be sure they aren't letting in fifth columnists. But surely they can find someone whose judgment on these questions they can trust? And surely fear of fifth columnists is no excuse for holding up for months the visa request of a man like Wilhelm Herzog, who is known all over the world as the most eminent anti-Nazi, and for whom Thomas Mann himself has doubtless vouched?
"But the trouble isn't wholly with the State Department. A great many of our protégés have repeatedly told us that the consuls at Lyon and Nice show marked ill will in their relations with are very hostile to the refugees who apply to them. The refugees are poorly treated They receive them shabbily, treat them with distrust and even at times with brutality. They multiply the administrative red tape; demand papers impossible to procure; give appointments grudgingly, and then for days, weeks and even months ahead; and they make the applicants come back again and again in an obvious effort to discourage them.
"Another thing about these consuls is that they make no effort to keep abreast of the regulations: the refugees say that at the consulates at Lyon and Nice they are being told that the German-Austrian and Polish quotas are still closed, though this has not been true since the first of January. Finally, it is extremely difficult for the refugees to get convocations from these consulates even when the authorizations have arrived from Washington or the dossiers are complete and the visas can be granted; and most of the letters and telegrams they send the consulates go unanswered even when they are accompanied by prepaid reply coupons.
"This perhaps explains why at Lyon it is still true that no one can obtain a visa under the combined German-Austrian quota who didn't register before September, 1936. Lyon also invents laws of its own. A vice-consul there recently told one of our clients that it was illegal for minor children to go to the United States unless accompanied by their parents.
"Nice is almost as bad as Lyon. The consul seems to enjoy associating with rich English and American expatriates and deeply resents having to have anything to do with refugees and, particularly, Jews. Both he and the consul at Lyon are more or less openly anti-semitic. Like the consul at Lyon, the consul at Nice hasn't bothered to move the quote deadline from September, 1938.
"Pretty much the same thing is true of Algiers. There, too, the consul tells everybody that the German-Austrian and Polish quotas are closed.
"In fact, so far as I know, the Marseille consulate is the only one in France where the German-Austrian and Polish quotas are open. But we are lucky to have at the American consulate here one or two thoroughly decent and hardworking consuls who do their utmost within the laws of the United States to help rather than hinder the refugees.
"The truth is that some of our consuls have been away from Washington so long that they have forgotten they are public servants and have assumed the attitude of rich private citizens living abroad who do not care to be disturbed.
"The visa rigamarole here is inhuman. It is almost literally killing the refugees. These poor devils not only have to go through a rigamarole with the French authorities to get their exit visas; they have to go through endless rigamaroles at the American Consulate and a good deal too at the Spanish and Portuguese Consulates. They have to wait in corridors and lines over and over and over again, until their very souls must be shriveled and shrunken by the experience. I know of nothing more dessicating than standing in line. And yet there seems to be no solution for them.
"I talked to the American Consul this morning, for instance, about the possibility of issuing immigration visas without first demanding to see the exit visas. It would save the refugees from three to four months' time in the long and weary process of getting their visas together. The exit visa is actually the only one they can demand without first having the American visa in their hands. This they can do by producing a letter signed by the Consul, stating that they may have the American immigration visa as soon as the exit visa has been accorded. Once they have this paper, they make the demand, and then they wait anywhere from one to five or six months for the answer. If the answer is favorable, they take the American visa and then and then only can they begin the process of getting the Portuguese and Spanish transit visas. We know of cases where the according of Spanish visas has taken two months or more. We have one case where the demand was made early in November, repeated in December, and is still without an answer.
"There was also the danger of being arrested at the frontier, for trying to leave France without an exit visa. That too was a grave offense, and would almost certainly land foreigners in concentration camps. So far it hadn't happened; but there was no saying when it would.
"Finally, there was a real risk in crossing Spain, especially for certain well-known refugees traveling under their own names, or for others, even with false passports, if they were sufficiently well-known to be likely to be recognized.
"Paul's friends were Franz Boegler, Hans Tittel, Fritz Lamm and Siegfried Pfeffer. There were visas for all of them at the Consulate. Harry Bingham sent letters and telegrams to the army officer in charge of the camp asking him to let them come to Marseille to get their visas, but it didn't work. He just didn't get an answer.
"Meanwhile, Mrs. Boegler and her sweet little boy of two came to me for advice and help. Mrs. Boegler was convinced that her husband would be handed over to the Gestapo any day. But she didn't want to leave France as long as there was the slightest chance that she could do something to save him. I felt that if the American Consulate couldn't do anything, she could do nothing either, and it seemed better for her and the boy to be out of the country when the Gestapo came and took her husband off. I had a lot of trouble persuading her to go, but in the end I succeeded. She and her little son went down to Cerbère and crossed over like everybody else, and I promised to save her husband and the others if I possibly could.
"The only people who had any trouble in the first weeks were the Victors. They had left Germany shortly after Hitler came to power and had gone to Switzerland. After living there several years, during which Victor wrote and did radio work and his wife had a baby, the whole family, including Mrs. Victor's mother, were asked to leave the country. Not that the Swiss had anything against them; on the contrary: just that Switzerland isn't in the habit of letting political refugees in and, on the rare occasions when it does, almost never lets them stay more than a few years. The Victors looked around frantically for some country to go to. At the last minute, they got visas for Luxembourg. Just before the war began, they went to Paris, traveling on special refugee passports which the Luxembourg government had given them in accordance with a League of Nations convention the little duchy had signed several years before.
"In May, the French interned Mr. Victor in a camp near Paris and sent Mrs. Victor's mother to the big internment camp of Gurs, in the High Pyrenees. Mrs. Victor was allowed to stay on in her apartment in Paris because she had a three-year old child to take care of. She and her child went through the bombardment alone. Just before the Germans entered the city they escaped to southern France, walking by day and sleeping in freight cars or woods at night. Meanwhile Victor had escaped from the internment camp and found his wife and child, by one of those miracles of chance which seemed always to be happening in France.
"When they came to Marseille, I sent them to the Consulate and they got their visas on their Luxembourg refugee passports. But, on account of the baby, they felt they couldn't go over the frontier on foot. There was a story going around Marseille that you could get exit visas at Perpignan. So they went to Perpignan to try their luck. There they met a man named Berger. Berger turned out to be a German exile of Hungarian extraction. He was always very well-dressed, used perfume, and smoked expensive imported cigarettes, which he bought on the black market. He was one of a whole tribe of men who were making money smuggling people out of France, but unlike most of the others he had a reputation for never promising more than he could perform, and of being a square shooter in his dealing with refugees. When Victor showed him the Luxembourg refugee passports, Berger examined them with professional thoroughness and said he'd take them to the prefecture and see what he could do about getting exit visas on them.
"The next day Berger met Victor again and said he could get the exit visas for 4,000 francs apiece, or $100 at the official rate of exchange. Victor had some money of his own, so he made a deal with Berger for the visas. A few hours later, Berger brought the passports back with French exit visas in them. They were real exit visas issued by the prefecture at Perpignan and signed by the prefect himself. Victor paid Berger the 8,000 francs and he and his wife and child set out for Cerbère the next morning.
"When they got to Cerbère, the frontier police wouldn't let them out of the country. The police wouldn't explain why they didn't recognize the Perpignan exit visas, but they didn't, and that was that.
"The Victors had no choice but to go back to Perpignan. When they got there they looked up Berger and told him what had happened. Berger said that for the cost of the gasoline he would take them down to the frontier in his car and see that they got over. They set out for the frontier again, this time in Berger's car. Instead of taking them to Cerbère, he took them to Le Perthus, the first border point west of Cerbère, where there is a motor highway over the frontier, but no railroad. At Le Perthus, Berger had no trouble at all in getting them through the French police, most of whom he knew by name. But when they came to the Spanish police and presented their passports, they were told that League of Nations documents weren't recognized in Spain.
"'Spain doesn't recognize the League of Nations,' the Spanish border official said, handing the passports back.


Besides the E-M10 I had the Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the M.Zuiko 75mm F1.8 lens with me, the E-M10 was equipped with the Panasonic Leica 25mm F1.4 lens.
I wrote many articles about my first visit visit in Japan, if you want to know something about my experiences in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, or Koyasan please take a look at the articles. This time I will show you some impressions from the Japanday.
The event started at 1pm but since I had to work on Saturday I wasn't able to be there before 5pm. That's why I didn't had a chance to take a look at everything in detail. After drinking some Sake I went to the stage to make some photos of the performances. Besides The Sake tasting and the performances on the stage there were lots of workshops like for writing Haikus, arranging flowers or dancing Bon-Odori. There was also some information about Manga and Anime and it was possible to taste some Japanise food.
I summary it was a really nice event, something I will visit in the future again for sure – but next time I will ensure I have more time to take a deep look into everything that was offered.