Jews in North Africa: Repression and Resistance
Jews in North Africa: Repression and Resistance
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| Jews in North Africa and Iraq |
North African Jews were relatively fortunate because of their distance from German concentration camps in Eastern and Central Europe, which enabled them to avoid the fate of other Jews in Europe. They were also lucky because they did not live under German control. The Germans never occupied Morocco or Algeria. Although they briefly occupied Tunisia from November 1942 to May 1943, after the Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria. The Germans did not have enough time and did not have the necessary means to systematically subject the Jews of Tunisia to Germany's policy in areas under its direct control in Europe.
However, the attacks on Jews and their property continued by the local anti-Semites in Europe and the children of Muslims. This happened before the war in the three countries (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) and continued without being hindered by the Vichy authorities.
Even before the Second World War, the French government set up camps in the "Perini" area to arrest Spanish Republicans who fought against Franco's Fascist rebels in the Spanish Civil War and those accused or convicted of political crimes and Jewish refugees who had fled from Nazi Germany to France.
After the signing of the truce with Germany, the Vichy foreign authorities, including the Jews who volunteered and fought in the French army against the Germans in 1940 and foreign refugees, sent them to labor camps in Algeria and Morocco. Upon their arrival, Jewish refugees received assistance from local Jewish committees, from the Joint Distribution Committee, as well as from HICEM, and assistance from the International Jewish Immigration Organization. They also tried to obtain visas and arrange for them to travel to the United States.
The Vichy administration sent other Jewish refugees to camps in southern Morocco and Algeria for the purpose of short-term construction of the cross-desert railway. There were about thirty camps, such as the Magajal and Bouarfa camps in Morocco, the Progéia, the Delfa, and the Bedoui in Algeria. The conditions of the Jews working in the railroad, which numbered over 4,000, Cruelty.
The Allies were planning a second front in North Africa since September 1942. Operation Torch called the American and British forces under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower to land on the shores of Morocco and Algeria and take over Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt wants the Vichy administration in North Africa to change its alliance front and to fight with the Allies against Germans and Italians. The US president therefore opposed coordination with the French Free Forces led by General Charles de Gaulle. On 8 November, a successful Allied landing took place in Algeria and Morocco. It was initially resisted by Vichy forces but entered Casablanca on 11 November.
In Algeria, the resistance forces staged a coup d'état in Algiers and managed to neutralize the 19th Corps of the French army. Algeria was overturned by the Jews Bernard Caresenti, Dr. Jose Aboulkir, the "Five Committee" and Vichy supporters who were anti-German. Among the 377 participants in the coup there were 315 Jews. Although US officials have promised weapons to the resistance leaders, they have never fulfilled their promises. American officials working on Roosevelt's orders negotiated a deal with Admiral Darlan Jean-Francois, the High Commissioner for North Africa, to stop Vichy's Allied landing resistance on 10-11 November 1942. The leaders of the Gul resistance in North Africa had sacrificed the deal and had not obtained Authority.
Immediately after the fall of the Allies in Algeria and Morocco the Germans occupied Tunisia. On 23 November 1942, Moise Borgil, the head of the Jewish community in Tunisia, was arrested by the Germans and was accompanied by several other prominent Jews. The resistance of the religious persecution of the Jews of Tunisia came from the general resident sympathizer of Vichy Admiral Esteva, the mayor of Tunis, as well as the city's mayor, Aziz Glouli, as well as Italians who demanded action against the Jews of Tunisia except those Jews of Italian origin.
In early December, the Germans called Burgel and Rabbi Jaime Blachy to dissolve Jewish social institutions and ordered the Chief Rabbi of the Jews to provide workers for the Axis powers. At that time the Germans had informed the authorities of Tunisia and Vichy that they could no longer interfere in Germany's dealings with the Jews in Tunisia. Two days later, Jewish leaders presented a list of 2,500 Jews, of whom only 128 came to work. The Germans searched the Jewish quarter of Tunis and the captured Jews were sent to a camp in Shailos near the city. At the same time, the SS arrested one hundred prominent Jewish figures in Tunisian society to force them to provide a group of Jews for forced labor
Some 5,000 Tunisian Jewish men were recruited in nearly forty detention camps and forced labor areas close to the front lines. These camps are run by the Germans and the Italians. The most important of these camps is the military port of Bizerte, under German control. The situation in the camps was terrifying, especially those run by the Germans. Famous Jews set up committees to improve the lives of detainees and classified sick workers and help them escape. This was gradually made easier by the collapse of discipline in the camps.
The German authorities continued to persecute the Jews of Tunisia even though the Allied air and ground strikes had exhausted them in the spring of 1943. For example, the Germans imposed fines on the Tunisian Jewish community on the pretext of compensating the civilian victims for Allied bombing. In March 1943, anti-Semites from the right-wing French colonists raided Jewish houses and shops and denounced 20 members of the resistance against Vichy, some of whom were Jews of German authorities. The Germans arrested them and sent them to concentration camps in Europe.
Sarah Sussman
Stanford University
