Via the Head Heeb: The Arabs and the Holocaust.
Dr. Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy writes about the forgotten history of North African Arabs who resisted Nazi attempts to bring the Holocaust to the Maghreb. Dr. Satloff spent several years in North Africa researching Nazi efforts there, and found many villains who collaborated with them during their brief occupation. He tells the whole story in the linked essay. The Dove, of course, is more interested in the heroes, whose stories he also uncovered:
"Heroes, though fewer, provide inspiration beyond their numbers. Arab inmates of labor camps shared the suffering of Jews and at times forged an antifascist bond with them. The sultan of Morocco and the bey of Tunis provided moral support and, at times, practical help to Jewish subjects."In Vichy-controlled Algiers, mosque preachers gave Friday sermons forbidding believers from serving as conservators of confiscated Jewish property. Not one Arab broke ranks to take up the collaborationist French regime's lucrative offer.
"I tracked down the Chlaifa sisters, Muslim septuagenarians who confirmed a tale told to me by an elderly Jewish woman about a local notable, Khalid Abdulwahhab, who saved the lives of her family. He had whisked them away in the middle of the night to his countryside farm to escape the predations of a German officer bent on rape. He then guarded the Jews on his farm for several weeks, until German forces were expelled from Mahdia. He was a true hero.
"To many Arabs, discussing the Holocaust is radioactive because they fear it lends justification to Israel and its policies. But even that deep political dispute cannot obscure the fact that Arabs have a relationship with Jews that predates the establishment of Israel, a complex history that provides sources of pride as well as reasons for shame. Accessing that history would bring Arabs into a universal discussion of the Holocaust's message. "
Jonathan Edelstein suggests that Khalil Abdulwahhab's name be added to the memorial Yad Vashem, in Israel, as a righteous Gentile who protected Jews during the Holocaust.
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