Among the Righteous:Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands

324 Pages·2007·3.12 MB·English

by  Robert Satloff

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Table of Contents

Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph

Table of Figures

Introduction

Chapter 1 - From Tunis to Dachau

Chapter 2 - The Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands
Vichy Across the Mediterranean
Libya’s Fascist Moment
Nazis in an Arab Land

Chapter 3 - Buchenwald in the Sahara
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Chapter 4 - “Nobody Told Them to Do That”

Chapter 5 - “The Arabs Watched Over the Jews”

Chapter 6 - Anny’s Story

Chapter 7 - In the Heart of Europe

Chapter 8 - A Crack in the Wall

EPILOGUE: A POEM
POSTSCRIPT: THE CRACK BECOMES A CREVICE
APPENDIX: SITES OF LABOR CAMPS IN TUNISIA, ALGERIA, AND
MOROCCO
Acknowledgements
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
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Table of Figures

FIGURE 7.1 Dalil Boubakeur handed me this French archival document
during our meeting at the Great Mosque of Paris. It attests to the fact that
German officers ordered Si Kaddour Benghabrit to stop helping Jews.
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Praise for Among the Righteous
“Robert Satloff’s new book... is an essential addition to our understanding of
this darkest period of the 20th Century... Perhaps this book can help launch a
new kind of dialogue between Arabs and Jews. If nothing else, Among the
Righteous does an important service in documenting both the good and the
evil committed by Arabs towards their Jewish neighbors during the
Holocaust.”
—ABRAHAM FOXMAN, Holocaust survivor and
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
“Robert Satloff has written an intense and searching and honest book. He has
looked into a great unexplored terrain: the reach of the Holocaust into Arab
lands. He has returned with both heartbreaking and bracing stories. A
supremely honest author, he has no axe to grind, he is moved only by the
search for truth. A book of great integrity, it throws a floodlight on the
Middle East and North Africa at a time when all tissues of civilization were
torn asunder.”
—FOUAD AJAMI, Majid Khadduri Professor
and Director of Middle East Studies Program,
The Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies,
and author of The Foreigner’s Gift
“Only when we talk openly about the commonalities and differences of our
faiths can we begin to address tensions and misunderstandings. Rob Satloff’s
book is a starting point toward a better understanding, and a bridge to the
future. Many times Muslims say that they cannot be anti-Semitic because
they are themselves Semitic. Let the incredible research Rob Satloff has
poured into his book be seen as a sign of that commonality.”
—GREGG RICKMAN, Special Envoy for Monitoring and
Combatting Anti-Semitism, U.S. Department of State
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“[Satloff] speaks objectively about an unknown role of the Arabs in helping
the Jews during World War II.”
—JIHAD AL-KHAZEN, al-Hayat, London
“Satloff provides inspiring and heartbreaking personal accounts of survivors
of this under explored aspect of Holocaust history [and]... raises critical
questions about the Nazi campaign that helped disrupt the centuries-old
accommodation between Jewish communities and their Muslim hosts in the
Middle East.”
—JUDITH MILLER, New York Sun
“Robert Satloff, one of the world’s smartest Arabists, reveals other links
between the Arabs and the Holocaust in his groundbreaking new book,
Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into
Arab Lands.”
—MAX BOOT, Los Angeles Times
“[Satloff] tells a riveting tale... He settles in North Africa, gathers clues and
builds a convincing case. By the end of the book, he presents a persuasive
case that Arabs did indeed behave as “righteous” men and women in the fight
against fascism... The story twists this way and then that way, shuttling back
and forth relentlessly from good news to bad news, and from despair to
elation. Few political stories come as complex as this one, and few stir up as
much passion.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“[I]t is not simply as a historian that Robert Satloff sets about raking through
the ashes, but as a man on a mission of peace—to discover evidence of as
much or as little humanity as it will take for all parties to Arab/Jewish
hostilities over the past 60 years to feel better about one another... Among the
Righteous ... is an act of gentlemanly civility amid the shouting . . . ”
—Sunday Times of London
“[Satloff] brings to light a fascinating case of heroism and defiance... While it
may be naive to think that a few inspiring stories can break the ice between
Arabs and Jews, Satloff is to be commended for digging up such stories in a
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political climate where many would still prefer them to stay buried.”
—Montreal Gazette
“A leading expert on the Arab world, and as executive director of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Satloff is uniquely qualified to
address the broader issue he raises in this sad and interesting book: During
the Holocaust, where were the Arabs? And more precisely, whose side were
they on?”
—Weekly Standard
“Satloff has crafted a book that is partly a history of the Holocaust in North
Africa and partly a travelog of his efforts to re-create the stories of the
perpetrators, victims, and bystanders in this often overlooked corner of the
Shoah ... Satloff adroitly explains how Arab-Muslim attitudes toward the
Holocaust, which range from outright denial to profound knowledge, are
often shaped not only by the contemporary conflict between Israel and its
neighbors but also by Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.”
—Library Journal Reviews
“Among the Righteous... has gotten considerable buzz since it came out in the
beginning of last month... As an honest historian, [Satloff] tells the whole
truth of that time and place as he found it, the good and the bad, and puts
things into perspective... [H]e is at once an honest historian and a
wellintentioned public intellectual.”
—Jerusalem Post
“We do not know the Arab role in the Holocaust, which required well-known
researcher Robert Satloff to dedicate two years of his life. He spent them in
Morocco, to investigate the facts and search for Arabs who saved Jews or
Arabs who surrendered them to the Nazis... ”
—al-Ra’i, Jordan
“Satloff has discovered that contrary to common wisdom and widespread
ignorance, there were Arabs in these lands who risked their lives to save
Jews... Polished and erudite, Satloff speaks confidently, sometimes sparsely,
in well-honed sentences. As a historian, he is not easily pried away from the
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rigors of his academic training and he avoids what he refers to as
‘psychologizing or sociological explanations.’ Yet he often draws political
and social conclusions, albeit cautiously.”
—The Jerusalem Report
“Satloff’s compelling book details the roles Arabs played in assisting or
resisting the Third Reich, Italian Fascism and the Vichy government, and the
expansion of the Final Solution into their countries... this is important
material, and Satloff’s work is groundbreaking for Jewish, Middle Eastern
and Holocaust studies.”
—Publishers Weekly “This book is definitely an eye-opener that sheds light
on an all-too-often forgotten aspect of the Holocaust. There are many books
concerning the Holocaust on the market today. This one is unique and makes
a solid contribution to understanding what happened in Arab lands.”
—Jewish Tribune
“Robert Satloff’s new book is sure to rankle Arabs who insist that the
Holocaust never happened.”
—Moment magazine
“[Satloff’s] engrossing and deeply personal study shows how Europeans
brought the Holocaust to the Sahara... A thoughtful work showing that hatred
—and compassion—can flourish anywhere.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This account is bound to be controversial.”
—Booklist
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