Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab Lands [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Robert Satloff, Executive Director, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has written an important, gripping examination of a relatively unknown, often untold chapter of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, that occurred when Nazi Germany and its Fascist allies and client states (Fascist Italy, Vichy France) occupied North Africa in World War II. "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands" is a memorably terse account of Satloff's search for "The Righteous" among the Arab and Muslim worlds, a seemingly quixotic quest in search of those Arabs and Muslims who did try to protect their Jewish neighbors from persecution, imprisonment and execution by the Nazis and their Fascist allies. He embarked upon this search hoping to impress upon Arab intelligentsia in the Middle East of the necessity to come to grips finally with the harsh realities of the Holocaust; something that virtually all have failed to come to terms with since their acknowledgement of the Holocaust might lead eventually to recognizing the validity of Israel's right to exist, and of the important, though quite tragic, reasons why it was established as the world's only independent Jewish state. Much to his everlasting credit, Satloff has succeeded in his admirable quest, demonstrating that there were some Arabs and Muslims willing to protect Jews from Nazi persecution, even though others actively suppported it, while most remain indifferent to the worsening plight of their Jewish neighbors. Satloff's publisher, Public Affairs, deserves ample praise for recognizing the importance of Satloff's work by publishing this fine, if rather terse, book.

Satloff introduces us to wealthy, worldly Arabs in Algeria, Tunisa and Morroco who willingly saved Jews from persecution by Nazi German troops and Fascist Italian and French police, often at great personal risk to themselves, their families and friends. Indeed, there is one especially poignant account of an Arab risking his life to save a Jewish woman from being raped by German soldiers, finding for her and her family, sanctuary, literally at the last minute. He also describes the actions of Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Chenik, who risked his life by peacefully resisting Nazi efforts to have Tunisian Jews moved to local concentration camps. And he notes that Paris's Grand Mosque was the sanctuary for approximately 100 North African Jews, concluding that senior Muslim leaders in the mosque had provided them with necessary documentation to prove to both Nazi and Vichy French authorities that these persons were actually fellow Muslims. Already Satloff's pioneering research has led the Federal Republic of Germany to offer financial compensation to those who were forcibly moved to the more than 100 labor camps established by the Nazis and their Fascist allies throughout Nazi and Fascist-occupied North Africa. While Satloff may not have succeeded in finding the "Arab Schindler" or "Arab Wallenberg", he has nonetheless done an important service in finally revealing the scope of Nazi and Fascist persecution of Jews in North Africa; for this reason alone "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands" deserves to be read widely in the Middle East, as well as here, in the United States.

This book is well written and covers an important and mostly overlooked subject. But the most poignant and important subject of this book is the authors main point. The book sets out to answer the question "was there one Arab who saved one Jew?" The introduction to this book shows that in general the most famous Arab to collaborate with the Nazis, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and tangentially Ibn Rashid the coup leader in Iraq, are moderatly known and there stories covered. However little light, outside of Michel Abitbol's book, has been shed on the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in North Africa. SO the effort here is to shed light on the many work camps set up in Tunisia, Algeria and Libya during the war and show how thousands of Jews died in North Africa at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. But the treatment was not universal. The Vichy government and the Italian government enacted race laws, but indiviudal local leaders didnt always extend the laws to Jews. However after 1941 the Nazis took an increasing role in North Africa, eventually sending the SS to round up and extort the Jews. In the end the Jews of North Africa and their communities which numbered some 300,000 were destroyed financially, stripped of rights and thrown out of all occupations, despite having been patriotic Frenchmen and Italians.

But the book aims to do something more than give us an intimate history of this. The author admits most Arab countries deny the Holocaust. However the view here is to examine the role of individual Arabs in saving Jews in North Africa so that Arab educators might be able to internalize the Holocaust as a heroic story of Arabs helping others, rather than the way it is taught as the Holocaust leading to the state of Israel.

So this book has a two-fold goal and the goal is admirable and interesting. It helps us understand what happaned to 500,000 Jews during the war who have mostly been forgotten by history. Second it helps to show Arabs that some of them can be proud of being knowledgable of the Holocaust.

Seth J. Frantzman

Before I go too deeply into this book, two general observations right off the top.

Firstly, considering all that has been written about the Second World War in its magnitude, to have a relatively untouched subject such as this be brought to light at this late date is truly welcome and laudable. Secondly, as I've often noted, an unfortunate side-effect of the coverage justifiably given to the evils of the Holocaust has been a certain infrequently-admitted desensitizing to the horror of the mass murder at its heart, and this new study of that period helps reawaken some comprehension of the utter dimension of cruelty that was behind the atrocities.

This book and its true stories of Arabs as rescuers of persecuted Jews (and sometimes as pro-Fascist collaborators who oppressed the Jews in North African labor camps) is a meaningful read for any scholar, or for the curious-minded. Telling tales of bravery in a time of great danger, there are many feel good moments, foremost Tunisian statesman Mohamed Chenik's clever and brave duel of wits and nerves with the occupying Nazis, courage on his part that saved Jewish lives, but there is also a scattering of disheartening tales, too, showing no culture has a monopoly on indecency.

I think anyone who deems peace between Jews and Arabs to be impossible would do well to consult the history recorded here. Not only is it a fact that traditionally Jews received better treatment when dwelling in Muslim nations than in Christian ones, but many Muslims regarded the slaying of Jews, identified in the Koran as "a People of the Book" to be a direct sin against God. Furthermore, I also think it's a sad fact that so many Muslims who worked to assist their Jewish countrymen later denied their roles, lest they suffer repercussions at the hands of reactionary fanatics intent on waging war on Judaism and those seen as soft on it. Progress may not be a constant in human affairs, but a book like this is fuel for the light of optimism.