1942 Yellow Star — Jews of the Somme

Article David Rosenberg: “L’étoile jaune dans la Somme : mise en place et resistance,” Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, 1er semester 2015, tome 70, no. 713-714, p. 684-696.

Yellow Star. An urgent telegram was received on May 31 at Amiens and throughout the occupied zone: Amiens was to send a police officer to a meeting in Paris, 61, rue du Monceau, to receive instructions. This was the beginning of the compulsory wearing of the yellow star for the Jews of France. Starting in early June, a new register was opened in the police station at Amiens. Heads of Jewish households had to appear in person to receive the cloth badges, 3 per person, including children over the age of six. In exchange they had to give up a coupon from their textile ration books for each person-- indignity piled on insult! Four Jewish veterans of WWI sought exemptions, but in vain. Leon Louria, clothing manufacturer and President of the Jewish Community Association of the Somme, was arrested on June 17, 1942, in the rue de l’Amiral Courbet for not wearing the yellow star in the prescribed manner and was sentenced to two years detention in the Doullens Prison Camp.