Among the Righteous

A few weeks ago for one of the book groups I belonged to we discussed the book, Among the Righteous by Robert Satloff. It appealed for two reasons. First it focused on the Jews of North Africa, and second, Robert Satloff lived in Rabat for a about a year and was known to some of the book group members.

The book focused on the search for Arabs in North Africa who had in some way given protection to or rescued the Jews of North Africa during the Holocaust. With my limited knowledge of European and African history, the first third of the book related the history of these areas, the intertwining of it in relation to and prior to the Holocaust. I did not know that Nazi Germany, Vichy France and Fascist Italy penetrated so far into Africa and with such effect. They took away the civil rights of the Jews, confiscated their property, restricted their movement, used them as slave labour and imprisoned them in concentration camps. For me, I had know idea of this French attitude, which seems contradictory when France at the time took on Morocco as a protectorate.

A number of the concentration camps and much of the slave labour was involved in the building of a railway line across the Sahara. The author managed to visit (in the early 2000s) the remains of some of these camps, come railway stations, in Morocco close to the Algerian border. Some of our book group members thought this would be an interesting visit to try and undertake today.

Next the book focused on the author's search for Arabs who had aided, protected and rescued North African Jews, and a difficult search it was. It seemed that Arabs either did not know about their families earlier involvement in this area or did not want to broadcast their involvement in it.

However he did succeed finding a family that hid Jews on their farm, while some Jews got false identity papers at the Grand Mosque in Paris. What I found saddest though was prior to the time of the Holocaust, the Jews in Tunisia were given French citizenship with many joining the French Army. Yet when Tunisia was invaded by Vichy France their citizenship was revoked with the Jews becoming the enemy of France.

The result was that a once large and important part of North Africa's population has now dwindled to a tiny number. Recently I was told there is one Jewish family remaining in Fes. The synagogues and Jewish cemeteries may remain but those to support, maintain and use them do not.

Among the Righteous was an interesting and eye-opening tale, but not one that kept me riveted.