When the Germans conquered Tunisia, the Jews were the first to pay the price • Thousands were sent to labor camps - and many of them died • "The stories of this community have great value"
Yaakov Saadon and his wife Ivt.
Saved the stories for many years
During World War II, Tunisia was one of the countries most severely affected by the German armor, from among the North African countries.
For about six months the Nazi occupation was felt in Tunisia - thousands of Jews passed through labor camps and many were killed, both from illness and while working for the Germans and were hit by Allied bombing.
Prof. Haim Saadoun is the son of a Holocaust survivor from the Tunisian city of Sfax, and he heard what his father went through only after many years of silence.
He is currently a senior faculty member in the Department of History at the Open University and director of the Documentation Center for North African Jews during World War II.
He often researches the subject and works to raise awareness of it.
"There is no other country in North Africa that has been so significantly affected by the German occupation," says Prof Saadon, "for six months, between November 1942 and May 1943, the Germans occupied Tunisia and ruled it just as it did in other European countries. The Tunisian Muslim regime and French rule Remained intact, and the Germans joined as a significant force that also influenced policy toward the Jews.
"The occupation of Tunisia in the midst of the war was due to German military considerations of the development of World War II in North Africa. On the one hand, their defeat in the battles in November 1942 in the Egyptian city of Al-Alamein, and on the other, the landing of American forces in Operation Lapid "Shooting and in Morocco. The conquest of Tunisia was a response to these two military moves, and the aim was to put a buffer between the British forces that came from Libya towards Tunisia and the American forces that came from Algeria to Tunisia."
Hard work between bombings
The SS forces that arrived in Tunisia with the German army were in charge of dealing with the Jewish population, as elsewhere in the world.
At the head of these forces was Walter Rauf, an officer who specialized in the extermination of Jews in Eastern Europe in gas trucks.
He and his people pursued a Jewish policy more or less similar to that recognized in Europe, and this was reflected, among other things, in the establishment of a Jewish community council through which they controlled the community.
For example, in imposing heavy fines on its heads.
"The Jewish community had to provide the Germans with at least 5,000 young men aged 17-50 who would serve as labor for the benefit of the German army," says Prof. Saadoun.
"The Germans owed manpower for various purposes and some of the Jews were kept in labor camps. Some of the camps were on the front lines of the war and there the Jews lived in very difficult conditions, worked very hard physical labor. There were 24 camps, we do not know how many Jews were recruited, but there are thousands. "They did not adopt a policy of killing Jews in Tunisia. There are isolated cases of murder, but not as a systematic matter, but many were killed during their work in the camps."
Haim's father, Yaakov, wrote in his memoirs: "The 18-year-old Jews were recruited to hard labor at the airports hit by American bombs. Also, the port and the train station. The Jews worked in service jobs and had to wear the yellow badge to differentiate themselves from the French and other peoples like the Italians "The Greeks, the Maltese (Malta), etc ... Quite a few workers were killed during their work as a result of the American and British bombings."
Only the rain quenched the thirst
Regarding the separation of Jews from the rest of the population, Prof. Saadon continues: "In some cities in Tunisia Jews used to wear yellow badges, for example in the city of Sfax. They were confiscated by the Germans, confiscated Jewish public buildings and valuable private equipment accumulated by members of the Jewish community. This is the first time that Tunisian Jews have had to deal with such a great difficulty and such a complex situation that they did not know before.They did not know how long it would last, it was not limited in time, it was a terrible time for them.
"Many Jews in North Africa wrote diaries, memoirs and lamentations about their situation during World War II. Community leaders published some of the stories immediately after the war. A lot of information was published, and we are exposed to these things over the years. A few years ago we published a diary of a Jew named Kalmo Hori. Where he wrote a daily description of his and his family's experiences - how the Germans confiscated their home, and they all had to be crammed into one room of another family in the neighborhood where they lived.People wrote a lot, we call on people to tell their story These stories have value. "
The Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem was established to preserve the heritage of North African Jewry, and established a documentation center for North African Jews during the war.
The writings of Saadoun's father are in the center and there you can read and learn about the past of the Jews.
"The Germans caught my father, a blond 14-year-old Jew with blue eyes, who saved him because they thought he was not a Jew because of his appearance. My father wrote a lot of letters kept with me, but for the most part he did not talk about the war. I did not understand why it took him any For so long, it turns out that it was very difficult for him to talk about this period, a kind of post-trauma, "says Prof. Saadon.
From Father Jacob's memoirs: "We lived ten people in the basement, next to each other like sardines. That's how we started our first exile. Because, in fact, as the bombings intensified, we noticed that we were still too close to the city. I myself felt in a night shelling that the bombs fell on us "Almost on the head. We left the first shelter and were about 10 kilometers away from the city. Here we were more confident, at least that's the impression we had."
"My father's family, like many families in Spax, fled to an Arab village, both because of the bombing of the city and because of the fear of the Germans," says Prof. Saadoun. He rented them a basement in an apartment in the Arab village of al-Grawa, they lived in the basement during the German period, and from there my father had different and difficult experiences. Until it rained, they did not even have water.