Noam (Norman) A. Stillman
North Africa Jewry During World War II: Subjugation, Heroism and a Near Encounter with the Holocaust

Noam (Norman) A. Stillman | North Africa Jewry During World War II: Subjugation, Heroism and a Near Encounter with the Holocaust

- I want to speak today about North African Jewry during World War II, which as the title says, Subjugation, Heroism, and a Near Encounter with the Holocaust, sums up a good deal of what we’ll be talking about. Now at the outbreak of the Second World War, approximately half a million Jews lived in the Maghreb, the Islamic countries west of Egypt. Maghreb in Arabic just means west, but it’s specifically is the country’s west of Egypt, that is Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. And could I have the first slide, please, the map? And here you see it. Basically the Maghreb begins here and goes all the way across to actually also including Mauritania and so on. But no Jews lived there. Now the Jews of the Maghreb constituted no less than two thirds of all Jews in the Arab world, and well over half the Jews in all of the Middle East, in Central Asia and in India. And the Second World War was a traumatic turning point in their history, as it indeed was in the history of all Jews. And although there were no death factories in the Maghreb, no railway lines leading to Europe and no mass murders on a scale approaching that of Europe, the Jews in North Africa would experience a relatively brief but very bitter foretaste of what awaited their brethren in Nazi occupied Europe. Now, at the start of the war, Libya was an outright colony of fascist Italy, which was an axis ally of Nazi Germany. And less than a year later, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco came under the administration of the anti-Semitic Vichy regime, which came to power after the fall of France, and signed an armistice with Germany, and which enjoyed enormous support among the equally, if not even more antisemitic, colonial Pied noir population.

They weren’t any colonists in Libya, but in French-north Africa and particularly Algeria, there was a huge number. And they came to be called the Pied noir, the literally black feet, because they wore shoes unlike the local population. And we should also keep in mind that Algeria, which was not a protectorate or a colony, but was considered an integral part of France, was the political centre of French antisemitism since the 19th century. But let’s turn to Libya first, and after that look at French-North Africa as a whole, because it had a great deal in common amongst the three countries. Even before the war, Libyan Jewry had become subject to the antisemitic racial laws that were emanating from Rome as of 1938. There were some earlier restrictive laws, but these weren’t very strictly enforced due to the indispensable role played by the Jews in the Libyan economy. The Jews of Libya, like the Jews of most Islamic countries, already in the 19th century, opted to get modern western educations, at least on the elementary level. And so that gave them a tremendous advantage in the developing economies, in basically over the mostly illiterate native populations. And so, as I said, the rules were not strictly enforced. In fact, the Italian governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, can I have the next slide please? Hear you see him. Although he was an ardent fascist, he was not particularly antisemitic. He was not a Judeophile but he was not a, by any means, a rabid antisemite.

And in fact, he abhorred Nazism, and he attempted to delay the full implementation of anti-Jewish restrictions, which he felt were a mistake as far as the colonial aims of Libya were concerned. In other words, from a purely practical point of view, he was not in favour of the new discriminatory laws. And in a 1939 letter to Mussolini, Balbo writes that restricting Jewish merchants and industrialists could only realistically be done when they could find Catholics to take their place and that to get rid of Jewish nurses in the hospitals and clinics, and clerks in government municipal offices. If they did that, there’d be no one to communicate with Arabic speakers. Since most of the Italian colonial authorities did not speak Arabic, nor to translate Arabic documents when necessary. And he ended up by saying that there’s no need to oppress the Jews overly anyway, since they are, and I quote, “Already a dead people.” Now, in a handwritten note, El Duce writes back that Balbo knows best on the administrative situation in Libya and doesn’t have to initiate the new restrictions for Libyan Jews. But non-native Italian Jews should be subjected to the racial laws just as they are in Italy. And he signs off by telling him to remember, and this is a handwritten postscript to the typed official letter that he sends him, and he tells him to remember, and I quote, “That though the Jews may seem dead, they never really are.” Now, early on in the war, Balbo’s plane was mistakenly shot down by Italian anti-aircraft gunners. And his death marks the beginning of immense hardship for Libyan Jewry. The fascist discriminatory laws were now strictly enforced. Jews were blamed for shortages in the marketplace and for rising prices.

They were also blamed as being causes of the war itself. And on top of all of this, Jews in Tripoli suffered many casualties from French and British bombing. Tripoli was the capital of all of Libya and had the largest Jewish population as well. And they suffered from casualties from the British and French bombings, and a large number lost their homes when the Hara, the Jewish quarter, was directly hit. And the situation deteriorated even further after the first British occupation of Cyrenaica, Libya’s eastern province between February and April of 1941. And could I have the next slide, please? And here you see, Cyrenaica is all of this area towards Egypt, all the way to the middle of the country and Tripolitania with Tripoli as the capital is over in the far west, northwest of the country. The Jews of Benghazi, Cyrenaica’s main city, and you see it over here on the east of the Gulf of Sidra, and not that far from Tubruq where there was the famous battle in World War II. The Jews of Benghazi, which was Cyrenaica’s main city, as I said, made the mistake of showing enthusiasm and what they considered liberation, and also of fraternising with Jewish soldiers in the Palestinian units of the British Army. There were a large number of Jewish volunteers in the British Army, and they were special Palestinian units, and they were involved in the battle for Libya. And there were reprisals when the Italians now reinforced with German allies, Rommel’s Afrika Korps, recaptured the province, and the situation of the Jews got even worse after the second and even briefer British occupation of Cyrenaica from December 24th, Christmas Eve, 1941 to January 27th, 1942. This time, collaborators were executed or given stiff prison sentences, and some Jews were actually shipped off to Europe and sent to from Italy to Bergen Belsen. And could I have the next slide, please? And here you see, this is a famous photo from the end of the war of Libyan-Jewish survivors, mostly from Cyrenaica, returning to Libya.

And you notice the train on the one hand says, has marked on it going home, and the others side says to Tripoli, although most of these people were not from Tripoli, but from Benghazi, Tubruq, and from Eastern Libya. And there were reprisals, as I said, when the Italians came in that the Italians, among other things declared a , a clearing out of all the Jews of the province. And over 2,500 Jews were transferred to internment and labour camps in Tripolitania. Most were sent to Giado in the desert, about 150 miles south of Tripoli. And actually, can we just go back to see the map so people can see how far this was? There we go. Basically, they had to go all the way through the desert over here to south of Tripoli in this area, which the Ubari sand sea and so on. This is also a desert area. And most of them, as I said, ended up in this concentration camp. Can we go ahead now, two slides ahead. Here is the Giado concentration camp. You can see it’s in the desert in the middle of nowhere. Can have the next one also? The very primitive conditions, these were Jews when they were being forced into the camp. And can have the next one also please? And here you see them in the camp doing work. And 562 of the 2,500 died in the camp, mostly from typhus. There was a typhus epidemic, and large numbers died out. The much larger Jewish community of Tripoli suffered greatly at this time as well. All of the males from 18 to 34 had to register for labour assignments. And about 3000 were sent to the Sidi Azaz camp near Homs. Many were sent off to labour details on the Egyptian front, which still was coming under heavy fire from the allied troops in Egypt. And others were put on road gangs. Also the Jews in the main towns throughout Libya received much smaller rations than Europeans or Arabs, and very often, much later as well.

And just before the British conquest, Jewish shops and businesses were plundered by Rommel’s Afrika Korps as they were… as they were retreating. Now what is particularly interesting is that Libyan Jews came out of all of this ordeal with an enhanced sense of communal solidarity and a strong Zionist . This was due to their very strong rabbinical and lay leadership, which remained active even during the war itself, and to their close indeed intimate contacts with fellow Jews in the Palestine units of the British Army. In fact, many of the Palestinian-Jewish, the Palestinian protectorate Jewish soldiers set up classes both for children and adults, for Hebrew and for… even for other subjects, since they had been forced out of school. And this continued even after the war with the British occupation of Libya, all the way up till its independence in, I think it was 1952. And in fact, the overwhelming majority, 90 plus percent of Libyan Jews made aliyah to Israel only of something like eight or 9,000 later on went to Italy since they had an Italian education and so on. But most of them went to Israel. Now, the beginning of the Second World War was quite different for the Jews of the French Maghreb than it was for their brethren in Libya. You have to remember that when the war broke out, France was allied with Great Britain against the axis. And despite the antisemitism of the colonial population, particularly in Algeria, where it was rampant as we already mentioned, the overwhelming majority of Jews in Algeria and indeed in Morocco and Tunisia strongly, even passionately identified with France. And when the Jews of Algeria were, of course, after three generations of French citizenship, were thoroughly galasized.

And in any case, when war was declared in September of 1939, Maghrebi Jews rallied to what they called the , the adopted homeland and protectors in what historian, my colleague, Michel Abitbol, has referred to as a “Paroxysm of Patriotism.” Now, unlike the Algerian Jews, most of Moroccan and Tunisian Jews were not French citizens. A few Tunisians, a few thousand had obtained it, in the case of Morocco it was a very small number. But even so many tried to volunteer for the French Army, and they were either turned away or deferred so as not to offend the Muslim population. And some young Moroccan Jews even joined the French Foreign Legion in order to be able to serve la patrie adoptee. Now, the fall of France was a tremendous psychological blow to Maghrebi Jewry, for whom France was the very embodiment of all that was good and enlightened. But in marked contrast to the Jews, many of the right wing antisemitic colonists saw the defeat of France, not as their own defeat, but as the defeat of the liberal Third Republic, and especially of the socialist government of Leon Blum, who of course was Jewish. And they enthusiastically supported Marshl Petain’s National Revolution, which dumped the traditional Republican ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity and replace them with the sombre motto of work, family, and fatherland. The Vchy regime issued a series of far reaching anti-Jewish laws right away, beginning with the Statut des Juifs of October 3rd, 1940, which defined Jews according to purely racial criteria, that were in fact even more stringent than those used by the Nazis in occupied France. And occupied France they were less strict than they were in Germany or in the Eastern European countries.

And the statute applied to all Jews under Vichy’s jurisdiction, be they citizens, subjects, proteges or resident aliens. And in fact, the vast majority of Morocco’s Jews and of Tunisia’s Jews were subjects, and they were resident aliens since some Jews had made it to Morocco just before, or at the beginning of the outbreak of the war, Jews escaping from Nazi occupied countries. And then on October 7th, an additional law was promulgated abrogating the Cremieux decree of 1870, the law which gave Algerian Jews citizenship and named after the great Jewish French politician, Adolphe Cremieux, and stripping 100,000 Algerian Jews of their French nationality. A bureau of was set up to take away Jewish businesses, and the professions were hard hit with a numerous clauses in all three countries. I should mention that in Algeria, despite the fact there was a good deal of anti-Jewish sentiment among the Muslim population, Muslims did not, for example, with the and the taking away of Jewish businesses, try to take over Jewish businesses, nor did they voice any sympathy since they saw that, they, of course, wanted independence from France. And they saw that the French treatment of the Jews under the Vichy Republic was bringing them no closer to their cause. In Algeria, all the Jewish teachers, from primary schools to university, and by the way, the University of Algiers was the only university in all of the Maghreb, from Libya to Morocco at that time. All of them, all of the teachers were dismissed. And a quota only allowed a tiny fraction of Jewish children to go to school, which in Algeria, as in all of France, since the Third Republic was established in 1870 was public. France had a mandatory public school system as of 1870.

And interestingly enough, the Jews of Algeria enthusiastically joined the system even though many of the colonials were simply not interested in getting an education, even though they were required to do so. Now, in Morocco and Tunisia, most Jews went to Jewish schools, mainly those of the Alliance Israelite Universalle, the great Jewish educational and philanthropic organisation, which founded, by the way by Adolphe Cremieux in 1870, I’m sorry, in 1860, 10 years before the Cremieux decree, and which had schools in every major town and city from Morocco to Iran. And these schools since they were private were allowed to remain open. The Alliance only very late opened a few schools in Algeria, since most Algerian Jews were not interested in going to Jewish schools, but wanted to go to the French schools. In response to this educational crisis, the Algerian Jewish community created ex nihilo under the leadership of men like Chief Rabbi Maurice Eisenbeth and Professor Robert Brunschvig, can I have his photo, please? He was still a professor at the Sorbonne when I was a young graduate student.

And by the way, he was one of the great historians of mediaeval Islamic history, particularly of the Mahgreb. And they, as I said, they created, and he had lost his position at the University of Algiers with the dismissals of a of 1940. And they created, as I said, from nothing, an entire Jewish school system for nearly 20,000 Jewish pupils from elementary all the way up to high school. And this they did despite numerous obstacles that were placed in their way by the hostile authorities, in Tunisia and Morocco there was no problem with, since the school system was more or less under the native Moroccan and Tunisian administrations. And by the way, I should note that during this time of anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution, the Muslim rulers of Tunisia and Morocco, Moncef Bey, can I have his picture please? And Sultan Muhammad the V, can I have his please? Both of whom, although technically the rulers of their country, could do nothing really of any importance without French permission, and indeed very often had to sign on to French, even before Vichy sign on to French legislation for their countries, with which they didn’t agree. And both of them were forced to sign anti-Jewish laws into effect. For example, in Morocco, there was a Dahir al-Sultanic decree saying that all Jews had to leave the modern European quarters of Moroccan cities and also remove their businesses and go back to the mellah, the Jewish ghettos of the country.

Both of these rulers expressed their personal opposition to Vichy discrimination to Jewish leaders in their country, and even conferred honours on them in private audiences. Years later, it became an urban legend among Moroccan Jews that Muhammad the V whom we see here, even saved them from being shipped off to the concentration camps of Europe. And of course, as I said, this is urban legend. They were, A, no real lines leading to Europe, and B, this was not in the plans for either Morocco or Tunisia at that time. The only actual close encounter with the Holocaust, and it was a brief one, was in Tunisia, which was invaded by the Germans on November 9th, 1942, after they’re defeated in Libya. And one week after the British broke through at El-Alamein, and one day after the Allied landings in Algeria, in Morocco, which we’ll see, we’ll talk about presently, Jews played an enormous role. Now, most of Tunisia’s 80 to 90,000 Jews came under direct Nazi control when the Germans invaded Tunisia. There was a Gestapo roundup of Jewish leaders, and a committee of Jewish manpower was set up on the model of the in Eastern Europe. Jewish males between the ages of 18 and 50 were pressed into hard labour at ports and military facilities. Can I have the next one, please? And here you see Jews from Tunis being marched off to a labour detail. And the yellow star of David, the badge that was forced on Jews by the Nazis, was issued in some of the towns and camps of Tunisia.

They weren’t enough to go everywhere, but they were being prepared for Tunis towards the end of the occupation just before the allies entered Tunis on May 7th, 1943. Can I have the next photo, please? And here you actually see in one of the towns where the Jews are removing their badges in the presence, and with the approval of the occupying British officers. By the way, the Nazis chief Gestapo person in Tunisia writes back that they would like to, of course, have not only the roundups, but also violence against Jews, shipping Jews off to concentration camps and so on. But he said, “We really don’t have the kind of control here to do all these things that we would like to do.” And a number of the Jewish community leaders were in fact arrested at the end just before the Nazis leave and were flown out to Auschwitz from which a number of them never returned. Now, the Allied liberation of North Africa turned out at first to be a bitter disappointment for all of Maghrebi Jews, and Algeria in Algeria, the sting was all the more painful because it was in no small measure that thanks to Jewish heroism, that the Allied landing in North Africa was so successful. On the night of the Allied invasion, the so-called Operation Torch. Can we have the next slide, please? Here you see Operation Torch, the allies, the naval forces of the British and the Americans came in in three countries, they came three places rather. In Algeria, the main force landed in Algiers, which was the capital of Algeria, but also the Governor General of Algeria was the Governor General for all French North Africa, and in Iran, over to the west, towards the Moroccan border, and finally over here, along the Atlantic coast of Morocco.

And the landing took place at the time of a bold butch of the Resistance made up overwhelmingly more than 85% of young Jews who were led by Jose Aboulker Can I have the next slide, please? A 21-year-old med student and the son of the lay leader of Algerian Jewry, professor Henri Aboulker, from whose home in Algiers, the entire operation was directed by the American Council, Robert Murphy, and Jose Aboulker and his companions. And by the way, they didn’t call themselves a Jewish group, they called themselves French, they insisted on their being true French patriots in doing this. And they, on the night of the landing, captured all of the major sites in Algiers and in Iran, and took as prisoners, the Governor General of Vichy, north Africa, Admiral Darlan, could we have his photo please? And they captured the commander of the French forces in Algeria, General Juin, I don’t have his picture, and the police chief and all of the major officials. But then the next day they were betrayed by the American consul Robert Murphy. Can I have his picture, please? Who went on, by the way, to be a figure in the US State Department. He wrote books including one about Operation Torch and so on, in which he leaves out what he did by betraying the Jews. And the next day, Murphy, who was, as I said, in radio contact with the Allied forces during the landing from the Aboulker home, he cut a deal with Darlan. He had been an admirer of Darlan. He was not merely consul in Algiers, he had been the consul in Vichy, France. And Darlan had been a member of the cabinet of the Vichy government, they knew each other well.

And he cut the deal with Darlan, putting Darlan and all the Vichy officials back as the local authorities, which left the Jews, of course, who had taken them prisoner the night before. And by the way, there were almost no allied casualties with the landing because of holding Darlan, Juin, and the police chief and many of the officers. And as I said, this left the Jews in the most precarious position imaginable. And just over one month later, when Darlan was assassinated by, of all people, a French Catholic, aristocrat, royalist, the Aboulkers and the Jewish members of the Resistance were arrested. And by the way, six members of the Aboulker family were arrested because two of the Aboulkers were also leaders in the action that secured or wrong for the invasion. And they were arrested, all of them were rounded up and sent off to the Laghouat prison in the central Algerian desert, where they remained under harsh and extremely primitive conditions for over two months. And of course, Henri Aboulker at this time was already a man in his 70s, an elderly individual. And all this time, the antisemitic Vichy laws remained in effect. Murphy argued, and Eisenhower, who was the commander in chief coming in through Morocco and so on, Murphy argued that number one, this was a French affair. B, there would be problems with the Muslim population.

And that basically that nothing should be done to make any changes until afterwards. And by the way, even before Murphy and before the invasion, and early in the consul in Algiers, the American consul, I found the document in the archives, the national archives in Washington, wrote back when asked by the State Department that people were saying we should intervene because of the anti-Jewish laws, saying that this is an internal French matter and that they are technically neutral, although, of course, they were very pro-Nazi in the war, and that it would be a mistake for the United States to intervene in any way. And it was only with a great deal of public opinion from the United States and from Britain that this cynical policy was overturned. I must say the New York Times correspondence wrote long articles about the treason, that here are these people who made the landing possible were now sitting in a desert prison camp, not to mention, of course, the antisemitic laws that were in effect. And on March 14th, 1943, general Giraud, Darlan successor, declared that the Vichy racial laws were now null and void. And he blamed them on the German pressure in France. Giraud by the way, was associated with de Gaulle and the Free French. But he did not restore French citizenship. And the Cremieux decree for Algerian Jews saying that that could only be done when the French National Assembly was reconstituted after the war. Again, there was much lobbying in Washington, London and Algiers. Even the French Catholic philosopher theologian, Jacques Marta wrote a long and very strong letter to Washington, and to the Gualle’s committee.

Only seven months later, after all of this did the Gualle’s committee of National Resistance, which technically ruled in Algeria, restored Algerian Jews French citizenship. But the sting of betrayal remained. Jews in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia had for more than a century looked to France as protector. It had represented to them all that was modern and what was good. And by the way, remember, French colonialism saw itself as the civilising mission, and it tried to make its natives as French as possible, quite different in that sense from British colonialism. And as one person once equipped that when the British left a colonial territory, the natives wished they could have British government order and so on. When the French left, the Natives wished they could be French in their heart of hearts. Now, the Jews and French North Africa had eagerly sought French educations already since 1862, and many strongly identified with the colonial endeavour . The young protagonist of the great Tunisian born, Jewish sociologist and political scientist, and novelist, Albert Memmi in his autobiographical novel, “The Pillar of Salt” eloquently sums up the profound disillusionment of many Jews at that time. And I just read from his novel, the main character, the hero who… this is after the war writes, “It was a painful and astounding treason of a civilization in which I had placed all my hopes and which I ardently admired. I was all the more hurt in my pride because I had been so uncautious in my complete surrender to my faith in Europe.”

The vast majority of North African Jews, in fact, went to Israel over the coming years. Goodly number did go to France. The majority of Algerian Jews who had stayed during the revolution and some of whom fought with the French did go to France as well. But the majority, overwhelming majority of Moroccan and Tunisians, like the overwhelming majority of Libyans ended up in Israel. And today where the was once over half a million Jews in North Africa at the time we were talking about, there are about 2000 left in France, a hundred or so left in Algeria, less than 2000, maybe closer to a thousand in Tunisia, and absolutely none left in Libya. So thank you one and all. I see that there are, what I gather are questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Ah, one question was… Oh, good deal many questions. What a question from Lena.

Q: “How were the Jews in Egypt treated during the war? And what about Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq?”

A: That of course could be a topic for another talk. In Lebinon and Syria, which were also came under the Vichy regime, the Vichy laws were not effectively put into force, in part because the French were under such pressure having the British just below them in the Palestine mandate and also in Iraq for at first. And it really did not go through various… it was not very strictly enforced. Nevertheless, the Jews in those countries were extremely unhappy to be under Vichy rule. Iraq is a special case, and that really deserves a separate talk. Iraq, of course, was British ruled, but it overthrew the ruling family. The king was only a little boy. His uncle was the regent. They were overthrown in a pooch. And for six months, Iraq became an ally of Germany. The Mufti who had fled Palestine after the Arab Revolt was a strong advisor in the ruling circles. However, the British come in after six months, invade from the south via, they come in from India, invade and get all the way up to Baghdad and are on the outskits of Baghdad. The pro German authorities flee, but the British don’t enter Baghdad. And there is a pogrom known as the .

As I said, this is a complete… this is a topic for a complete talk on another occasion. And there was a tremendous loss of life and property, which was terribly traumatic for Iraqi Jews. But that was it. In the case of Egypt, Egypt was under strict British control. In any case, the King of Egypt, Farouk, was secular and liberal, had had, for example, a Jew in his first cabinet. And there was no anti-Jewish legislation or persecution during the war. However, there was a great deal of anti-Jewish sentiment among the mass population and especially the Islamists. And when the war is over, there are pogroms that break out and so on and so forth. But again, that’s another topic. But the situation of the ma of the Jews in the Maghreb during the war was far worse than any of the others, except for the Iraqis during this short period of six months when it had a pro-Nazi government.

Sheila Shiat writes, “Pleased to see a picture of General Balbo. In 2004, when I was working at the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, a gentleman came in from the states to pick up a scroll from Brno, which he was taking to Allentown, New Jersey for his grandma’s BM,” I assume Bat Mitzvah. “He told me that the story of how he and his brother and children had survived with the help of General Balbo in the 1940, there had been an international fair in Chicago. His uncle in the US forces was reputed to look after the Italian Air Force delegation.” And as I did mention, when the war came to an end, he wrote to General Balbo, ah, well, when the war came, he wrote to Balbo and asked him if he could help his two nephews get to Switzerland, where he had a sister-in-law and so on. And he organised for the boys to travel to Vienna. As I said, Balbo was not an anti-Semite and his death was looked upon by the Jews as a tragedy and the beginning. And it really was the beginning of the Vichy anti-Semitic regimes, strict enforcement of its laws.

David Fernd writes, “My father, a Jewish refugee from Berlin, was a captain in the intelligence in the SA army, was in Benghazi and Tobruq, battles was captured by Rommel’s forces escaped, freeing 120 Australian and Canadian POWs in his trucks. His Germans helped, he was required to change his name to an English name as being captured would mean he’d be shot. He was required to change…. be shot by Rommel’s troops if captured.”

Q: Shelly Shapiro writes, “It seems that Jewish men were the ones in forced labour and concentration camps. What happened to the Jewish women and young children?”

A: Well, in the case of Libya, women and children were sent off to the concentration camps. In the case of North Africa, French-north Africa, for the most part only was men or women who had been politically active. If Georgia is still there, can you go back the PowerPoint, the last slide actually. There we go. As I said, six members of the Aboulker family were rounded up and sent to prison. One of them was Colette Aboulker who was running missions. Remember, there are no cell phones and there nor internet or any such thing. She was running missions all throughout Algeria on the night of the invasion to connect people in the various units. And as I said, she, along with her brother, her father and her cousins were among those sent to the prison camp. But after the war, she was recognised by the French as a hero. And here she is after the war receiving the Croix de Guerre, the French highest honour in the war for her activities. By the way, her brother Jose became, after he was set free, he went and joined the Free French and became a close aide to General de Gaulle. She, on the other hand, was a strong Zionist, and she went to Israel. She lived to, I think the age of 115 and became a well-known public figure, writer, educator and so forth. Quite an interesting personality, to say the least. But in the most part, women and children were simply back in their homes, but receiving less food than in the rations than anyone else. Thank you, Lyn, for the compliment.

Q: “Why do you think the urban legend arose that Muhammad the V saved the Jews from deportation?”

A: Ah, that’s my colleague Lyn Julius from London. That’s an interesting question. It was one that, by the way, the Moroccans, the Moroccan government and the Moroccan elite certainly helped to foster, and it partially could believed because Muhammad the V, he opposed the French. He became an active person supporting the resistance movements and so on. He said in several of… even when Israel was declared, he said that the Jew, and by the way, some Moroccan troops went to volunteer and Morocco still had only just become independent, had not yet become independent, sorry, at the time, went to fight in as volunteers in the Middle East, and he spoke on the radio.

There had been some violent anti-Jewish violence in 1947 and ‘48 saying, “The Jews of Morocco were his subjects. They were Moroccans like everybody else.” And so that also fostered this image. And I would just point out when I started working in Morocco in 1971, and there were still 30,000 Jews out of the 300,000 that had been there before, every Jewish home into which I entered had the portrait of Mohamed V, in either the living room or the dining room on the wall, every single home. And here in Israel, many Moroccan immigrants, particularly in places like Ashdod and Ashkelon, which have huge Moroccan populations, had Mohamed V’s portrait in their apartments as well. And in fact, there was going to be a monument to him in Israel that was just, it’d be about to be set up when the first Intifada broke out. And they never followed through on it. But I would just say, I actually would hope that they do it because, and by the way, also remember he was exiled by the French to Madagascar because of his nationalist leanings and activities. And so the Moroccans were only too happy to cultivate this. And Morocco itself cultivates its connection to its former Jews through the world Union of Moroccan Jewry, for which I spoke once, and which before I gave my talk, there was an official letter from the king at that time, Muhammad V, sorry, Abdullah. It’s Mohammed VI now.

Oh, it was Hasan at-athani, Hasan II, a letter read from him to this Jewish assembly in in North America. And I personally would hope that they would go back to doing that honour.

Q: “Did significant number of Jews in French Morocco go to Spanish Morocco since Spain was neutral?”

A: This question from Stuart Saidel. The answer is a few did, but most could not. It was very difficult to make the crossing, the authorities did not, simply did not permitted.

Q: “Is it true,” from Lyn, “that riots broke out in Morocco in early 1943? Some say the king actually incited them.”

A: There were. The king did not probably incite them. That I think is a, has to be proven. And it certainly doesn’t seem that given his feelings towards the Jews, paternalistic, but nonetheless, that he was the cause of them.

Q: Serena Kapinsky, “The South African boys who went north to help support the allies. Do you know if any of them connected with local Jews in North Africa?”

A: If they were in… anyone who was in the British Army units, if they were of South African origin, well might have. On the other hand, Americans who came into Morocco the force was entirely American. And American bases were set up and remained in Morocco, even there at the time of Moroccan independence and afterwards, an American base near Marrakesh and another one up near Kenitra. And American soldiers were in Casablanca during… when they occupied it. They had strong connection, the Jewish soldiers had strong connections with the local Jews, celebrated Passover seders with them. There are pictures of these huge seders with American servicemen and Jews from Morocco. And there were even marriages between Moroccan Jewish women and American soldier men. And indeed I was 20 years, they held the chair of Jewish studies at the University of Oklahoma, we founded the Centre for Jewish and Israel studies, and the president of the Conservative, the large conservative synagogue in Oklahoma City was a Moroccan woman who married an American soldier whom she met when they were hosting American servicemen in Morocco.

Ron Gotkin writes, “My father and uncle were in Egypt. My uncle married a Jewish woman from Alexandria, and she and her sister, who also married a South African, came to live in South Africa.” Well, of course, Egypt, you must remember, was a country of enormous foreign settlement. Large numbers of Europeans, by the way, large numbers of German, there was a huge German community in Egypt. Goering, Hermann Goering’s brother was one of the heads of the German community in Cairo and so on. And of course, all of this was because of the Suez Canal, and the fact that strict British control. There was a huge Greek community, there were large numbers of people from all over the world, including Ashkenazi Jews, for example, there was a large Ashkenazi synagogue in Cairo. One of the Ashkenazi rabbis was on the Chief Rabbinet of Egypt and so on.

Q: Marilyn Dell writes, asks, “Has the role of the Jews in Operation Torch been acknowledged?”

A: Subsequently, it has by historians of the Jews. But as I said, Murphy mentions in passing, but not that they played a major role, but he does mention, of course, Aboulker and being in his apartment and so on and so forth. But that’s as far as it goes with Murphy.

Rita, thank you for your kind words. And from 2255626. Thank you also.

Sheila, Lyn Julius has given sessions for lockdown university on the Jews of Iraq, including the Farouk. So you do know about that. And of course she has also done it for Harif, the association, which has wonderful online lectures as well. I’ve given for them, and I must say it was Lyn Julius who made the connection for me with Lockdown University, for, which of course I’m quite grateful.

Alec writes, “King Farouk was pro-Nazi and the British consul sir Miles Lampson moved tanks into the Aberdeen Palace and forced him to change Prime Minister.” Yes, Alec you’re absolutely right. He not only was pro-Nazi, we have, it was intercepted a private communication, which he sent to Rommel saying that he was hoping, that he was wishing him well and looking forward to the day when he might welcome him into Egypt. That did not occur. But Farouk’s pro-German status, all of the Arabs were pro-German, not necessarily for its antisemite. I gave a talk, actually, my last talk with Lockdown, and if you didn’t see it, it’s recorded and available through Lockdown on the internet. There was a great admiration of the Germans, A, because they were militant, and the Islamic world valued militancy, B, first and foremost, because they were the prime enemy of England and France. They were the rivals and enemy, and England and France were the colonial powers. And therefore, the Germans will look to for that. The antisemitism, those who adopted the antisemitism, the secular Pan arabist, and the Pan Islamists also adopted the antisemitism. But that was not true for the most of the elite authorities. Not for Farouk, not for Hassan, sorry, for Mohammed V, not for for Moncef Bey. They they really couldn’t care less about this.

Q: Diane Pomish writes, “I know Moroccan Jews who fled to Canada, was this typical?”

A: Canada has, after Israel and France, the largest North African Jewish, not just Moroccan, also Tunisian Jewish community. There are about 30,000 in Montreal and another five to 10,000 in Toronto. Most of them came not directly from North Africa, but went to France and Vince to Canada. They have a strong cultural organisation. I twice was a speaker there. In fact, my first French public lecture in North America was at sponsored by the North African Jewish community there. Oh, and by the way, the head of the writer’s union in Canada was actually an Iraqi Jew who came from Baghdad, but had been educated in the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools, and then went to a French university and wrote all his novels in French and including wonderful novels about Jewish life in Iraq.

Q: Ronnie Feldman, “America had diplomatic relations with Vichy tilt Pearl Harbour?”

A: Yes. But then they still were in North Africa, the American consul and so on. Sheila again, “Sorry, it was a fair in the 1930s in Chicago, and it was for his Grandma’s Bat Mitzvah. Apology for the typos.” Bat Mitzvah I assume.

Barry Epinstein, Barry writes, “I grew up in Rhodesia, and there were at least two families who came from Egypt. There were also a few Greek families who came to Rhodesia from Egypt. A very interesting talk.” Thank you. Thank you Barry.

And Myrna. Yes, there was a huge Greek population in Egypt, going back, of course, all the way to Alexander the greats conquest. Alexandria was originally a Greek city, and the Greek population in, the were still, when I first went to Cairo in January of 1971, the were still some important Greek figures, including the leading merchant of a ancient Greek artefacts. My late wife and colleague was a famous, among other things, art historian, historian of material culture. And she actually purchased for the Metropolitan Museum and several other museums, important works from this Greek dealer. He, however, left Egypt the following year.

Thank you. Thank you to . Thank you to Rita. Paula Fingleton, thank you again. Daniella Salza. Thank you for all of the thanks.

David Fruin, “My father did as associate on leave with Jews when he was in the South African Army, as mentioned.” Yes, no, Jews in the Allied armies went out of their way, especially because knowing what was going on in Europe, but also because the Jewish communities were so welcoming to them as well because of what they had been through, and they were also fully aware of what was going on in Europe.

Michael Block writes, “The Jewish soldiers with the British army heard that there would be a pogrom in Libya were forced to hand in their weapons to the British, which meant that when the pogrom took place they couldn’t help them. British antisemitism.” Yes, but this is after the war. The pogrom breaks out in 1945 and again in '47, and yes, they did not, just as the British, one of the British non-Jewish soldiers in his diaries, which he published from World War II, writes that they knew what was going on in Baghdad with this pogrom the Farouk, and they were not allowed to enter. They were told that it would look as if the regent had come back and was being put into authority by British Force. The following day, the Regent did put down the anti-Jewish violence, but already by that time you had had several hundred killed, ou had hundreds of thousands of British pounds in property damage, which is the equivalent of many millions today. So yes, I’m well aware of that.

Thank you Sorel for your thanks.

And Michael Block, I’m not quite sure, “Help the Libyan Jews.” I’m not quite sure what that means.

Naomi, “The students born in Algeria as French citizens who studied at the art school in Geneva, were at a disadvantage unlike the ones who came from Tunisia, Morocco, etc, they were unable to seek asylum to remain in Switzerland once they finished their studies.” Yes, that was one of the disadvantages at the time of their French citizenship, which of course in any way was being taken away from them by the Vichy authorities. It’s interesting that the Algerian Jews, for the most part, were not interested in Jewish education, even though, by the way, French public schools, as many of you probably know, have school on Saturday. They have a half day off or a whole day off on Thursday, and they have Sundays off, and there’s a half day on Saturday. And was one of the reasons why, even when there were French schools opened up in many places, Jews preferred to go to Jewish schools, and in Tunisia and Morocco, overwhelmingly so.

I would just also point out, Algerian Jews are so that to this day, Algerian Jews referred to Bar Mitzvah when speaking French as communion, communion, and brit milah, circumcision is called Batem, baptism in Judeo Algerian French. I think that’s it. Thank you for all of the responses. It was a… Look for those of you who… I just might might mention for your reading, Memmi’s novel, “The Pillar of Salt,” which has a good description both of Tunisian Jewry before the war, during the war, and after the war, is available in English translation if you don’t read French. And there are several other really, oh, and by the way, it was made into a movie, an Israeli movie. It’s Hebrew with English and French subtitles. And there are several others as well. There are several good French movies, one on the occupation of Tunis by the Nazis. Very, very good. Very, very good. Very, very good movie, very moving. And there are, as I said, there are quite a number of documentaries, all of which you can look up and find on the internet. So in any case, thank you very much and goodnight , and till the next time.