Evening star., 1941-09-08
100 Jews in France
Reported Arrested
As Nazi Hostages
Two Prominent Frenchmen
Also Seized in Steps
To Holt Puris Attacks
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
VICHY, Unoccupied France, Sept
8.-More than 100 Jews and two
prominent French lawyers, one of
them a Minister of Justice in the
old republic, were reported today to
have been seized as hostages by
German occupation authorities in
Paris because of attacks on members
of the German Army.
1t was in these new mass arrests
that the Germans took the two once
prominent lawyers, former Justice
Minister Pierre Masse, who is Jew
and Theodore Valensi, a former
deputy, who is a native of Corsica.
Vichy no longer tried to hide the
gravity of the strife in the occupied
zone or the fact that reprisals are
only making things worse.
I'VE can expect to see street in
cidents multiply" the official gov!
ernment news agency told its papers.
Compared With Open Warfare.
The agency reproduced an extract
from the Paris Cri du Peuple, COM
pairing the situation in Paris with
open warfare.
Authorized Vichy sources charged
that the outbreaks, particularly
shootings in Paris, were part of a
Communist plot aimed at forcing
Germany TO withdraw troops from
the eastern front
4l.a
followed series of demonstrations
August IS and 16 in Jewish neigh
borhoods in the 18th and Goth ar
rondisSmentS.
1t was announced, coincidentally,
that three hostages shot by the Ger
mans at dawn last Saturday in re-
taliation for an attack on German
sergeant were Communists. Their
names have not been disclosed
They were imprisoned last August
13 after anti-German demonstra-
tions in the Porte st. Denis quarter
of Paris and we're among about 60
other persons charged with being
Communists, according to this in
formation.
Political MOderates.
Authorized circles said the whole
group had been investigated care
fully and that the only ones consid-
cred as hostages we're those whose
Communist affiliations were proved
beyond doubt.
Masse and Valensi had been re-
garded as moderate in their political
tendencies and Masse, who was
Minister of Justice in the Poincare
cabinet in 1922, was a member of
the Democratic Alliance formerly
headed by Pierre-Etienne Flandin.
Police, it was announced, also are
searching for an accomplice of Paul
Colette who they believed helped
him obtain the weap with which he
shot the collaborationist leaders
Pierre Laval and Marcel Deaf.
At Versailles, where M. Laval and
M. Deaf are convalescing in hos
pital, four male nurses in a nearby
sanitarium have been arrested as
suspected Communists.
Shot for Aiding Escapes.
Another Frenchman was disclosed
to have been shot September by
order of a German court martial on
grounds that he helped French war
prisoners escape into unoccupied
territory.
An announcement in a Nantes
newspaper said he was put to death
because his action aided enemy
forces in view of the fact that pris-
oners were given the possibility of
joining partisans of De Gaulle or
the British army"
Two Germans, a civil official and
a non-commissioned officer, were
wounded Saturday night by gun
men who evaded capture. These
shootings, occurring only a few
hours after three French Commu-
nists were shot by German firing
squads in reprisal for acts against
the occupying forces, indicate the
French Communist party is bent on
carrying out Moscow orders, au-
thorized sources said,