The Holocaust in Libya
Following the German intervention in 1941, some Jews were sent to camps in continental Europe, where those who survived stayed until the end of World War II.
One of the reasons behind the support of Italy and a regime change began with the Italian influence on Libya through commercial and cultural ties.
[6] After the Italian conquest, the Jews received official status and were an important religious-ethnic group due to their key role in the Libyan economy.
Earlier that year, Benito Mussolini came to the Jewish community during a visit to Italian Libya and received a warm reception.
The Rome-Berlin axis forced the countries to operate based on common principles, so the German race laws applied to Italy and its colonies.
[4] In the racial manifesto, which was published in Italy in 1938, racist and anti-semitic laws appeared as representing the Italian Fascist Party's position.
[1] In the second half of 1940, after Italy joined World War II on the side of Germany, the Jews' situation worsened.
The Jewish community in Tripoli rented homes for the needy, constructed underground bomb shelters and supplied education for the children who were expelled.
In mid-1942, the governor decreed that Jews were forbidden to enter into real estate deals or commerce outside the community, to publish any material that did not relate to religion, and subject to other oppressive laws.
[2] The accelerated application of the Race Laws caused the Jews to lose trust in the Italian government and led them to support the British instead.
[2] The majority, or over 75%, of the Jewish community in Cyrenaica was sent to the Giado concentration camp, approximately 240 km (150 mi) south of Tripoli.
They found a Jewish cemetery from the 18th century where they were able to bury their dead - in numbers that grew daily, mainly due to malnutrition and the spread of typhus.
In March of that year, the British military Rabbi Orbach visited, and received permission to send 60 Jews to Palestine.
The camp did have an Italian doctor who ignored the mostly invented diseases and injuries of the prisoners, which allowed them to claim they were not suited for work and be released.
In October 1942, Bukbuk was the target of multiple bombings, and only in November, with the retreat of Italian forces, were the prisoners released and allowed to find their own way back to Tripoli, most of them with the aid of passing vehicles.
In September 1943, Italy fell under German control, and in October Jewish men were sent from Arzo camp, east of Siena, to forced labor.
[4] The food supply in Bergen Belsen was terrible, working conditions were very hard and prisoners were abused and harassed by SS soldiers.
The SS guards were cruel to the Jews- they were banned from any religious expression or worship, and punishment such as flogging, imprisonment and death by shooting were common.
In both camps the Jews of Libya made an effort to observe Jewish dietary restrictions despite the hardships, and traded their cooked meals for bread.
Many of the Jews of Libya perished in the camp, mainly elderly people who couldn't withstand the hunger, torture and disease.
According to Maurice Roumani, a Libyan emigrant who was previously the Executive Director of WOJAC,[10] the most important factors which influenced the Libyan Jewish community to emigrate were "the scars left from the last years of the Italian occupation and the entry of the British Military in 1943 accompanied by the Jewish Palestinian soldiers".
[12][13][14] In 1943, Mossad LeAliyah Bet began to send emissaries to prepare the infrastructure for the emigration of the Libyan Jewish community.
[15] The most severe post-World War II anti-Jewish violence in Arab countries was in Tripolitania (North-West Libya), then under British control, in November 1945.
Over a period of several days more than 130 Jews (including 36 children) were killed, hundreds were injured, 4,000 were left homeless (displaced) and 2,400 were reduced to poverty.
