Description
Wartime incoming civilian mail: 10-08-1940 uprated postcard from LYON (now Vichy France) to TEL AVIV franked 1.50Fr; received in Palestine as per hexigonal T5 Tel Aviv censor cachet. The UK suspended postal services to France and her colonies on 25 June 1940, on the same date the Vichy government was installed; Vichy severed diplomatic ties with the UK on 8 July following her attack on French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir but the UK restored postal services to France & colonies on 18 July 1940 but subsequently limited them to social and not business correspondence (letters & telegrams) to the areas of France (and certain colonies) not occupied by the Axis (i.e. Southern France) on 30 July. Vichy was not part of the Axis & maintained armed neutrality. Anti-Jewish legislation began with the "denaturalization law" of 16 July 1940, and the first specificially anti-Jewish law (excluding Jews from the army, press, commercial/industrial activities, and civil service) was enacted 3 October 1940. Interesting postal link at this time. The message seems to describe the writer's escape from France via Dunkirk.
