“The Nazis obliterated not only Yiddish; but also... Ladino... the spoken language of millions of Jews in Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans…. When the Nazis murdered 90% of the Jews of Greece, they murdered that wonderful language, too. Like Yiddish, fewer and fewer people still speak it.”
The film “Night of Fools” tells the story of how 400 members of the Algerian underground, almost entirely Jewish, helped the allies to retake Algiers. How so? By fooling a colonel in the Vichy General Staff into letting local Jews take over the army’s main institutions. The film was aired in Israel on Thursday in commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
The woman pictured lives on the grounds of the former Vichy Camp at Foum Deflia, Morocco (Photo courtesy of D’fina:Jewish Treasures of Morocco, an exhibit of the Diarna Geo-Museum. Photographs from the exhibit are now on view in the American Sephardi Federation’s Leon Levy Gallery at the Center for Jewish History)
The Holocaust’s long reach extended into the Sahara Desert, as the remains of this forced labor camp attest. In the early 1940s, France’s Vichy regime established a series of labor camps in North Africa. The camp at Foum Deflia, Morocco, served as a discipline center for certain prisoners from the larger detention camp at Bou’ Arfa, a town to the northwest. Set in a stark valley on the edge of the Sahara, the solitary camp seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Most prisoners lived in tents and slept on straw mats. Under the direction of Lt. Thomas, an overseer, terrible tortures were meted out against prisoners.
Click here to explore the exhibit, which includes photographs, a video tour, and 360-panoramas of the camp.
In 1940, Germany’s Nuremberg Laws were applied to Libya’s Jews by the Italian occupation authorities. In 1942, thousands of Jews were sent to Libyan concentration camps. In 1943, Hebrew-speaking soldiers from Britain’s Jewish Brigade arrived in Libya, looking for Jews and organizing classes. Born 1931, in Benghazi, Benjamin Doron remembers….
Benjamin Doron in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Benghazi, Libya (Photo courtesy of Yad Vashem)
Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East
April 20th at 7:00PM
at the Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
Join the American Sephardi Federation for a discussion with Rabbi Marvin Toyaker and Ellen Rodman, co-authors of Pepper, Silk & Ivory, a new book exploring the colorful and captivating history of Jews in Asia.
Running through May 3rd, 2015
at the TBG Theatre
312 W 36th Street, New York, NY
The American Sephardi Federation invites you to attend the poignant story of a woman’s self-discovery through her relationship with her father, a Greek Jew who survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Now he just wants to dance with his daughter at her wedding. Not too much to ask, right?
Donate nowand your tax-deductible contribution will help ASF “Connect, Collect, and Celebrate” Sephardi culture throughout the year with engaging programs and compelling publications.
Contact us by email or phone (212-548-4486) to sponsor future issues of the Sephardi World Weekly in honor or memory of loved ones.
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The American Sephardi Federation's Sephardi House is located at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011).