My Grandmother Was a Holocaust Survivor, and She's Not Ashkenazi. Surprised?

First of all, I have a small confession: for a long time, something has been heavy on my heart. It’s something very deep that touches the roots of my family. This timing, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, brings it to the surface more than usual and perhaps makes it the best time to talk about it.

Let's start from the beginning: I was born and raised in a warm Sephardic home in the center of the country. For me, the Holocaust was always a sensitive and explosive day, a day of national and personal mourning that I'm not sure I was ever truly able to comprehend or digest, no matter how many years have passed. I always had a special interest in this period and a special connection to the survivors, with whom I was fortunate to volunteer closely later in life.

As I matured, I was exposed to history lessons in school. Through them, I discovered that there was no lesson in the entire curriculum that captivated me like these ones, especially those focused on the Holocaust. I eagerly awaited this class each week.

In retrospect, I know today that my Jewish identity, and later my process of returning to religion, were strongly formed and shaped as a teenager specifically from there: from the inferno, this collective pain, and the toughest questions that arose precisely from this shock, which I insisted on placing on the ‘operating table’ to get answers. From there also grew the faith that goes beyond logical understanding, along with questions on countless things we will never understand.

Among all this, for me, the Holocaust was always the story of the Jews of European countries: Poland, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Holland, and others. I could never bring myself to visit Poland and its extermination camps to this day. But when I traveled to Holland, I didn’t skip visiting Anne Frank’s house, even at the expense of waiting half a day in a long line, which surprisingly did not include only Jews. The visit ended, by the way, in deep disappointment, with an attic turned into a successful and profitable tourist site, telling a ‘cool’ story of a teenage girl hiding in an attic during wartime. Without a truly appropriate mention of the Holocaust atrocities and its scope, and with a burning personal feeling of no less than Holocaust denial to some extent, but that's perhaps a whole topic for another column...

One day, to my astonishment, I discovered that I myself am a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. This, despite being Sephardi on both sides, with both parents born in the country, and grandparents who were part of a large Jewish community and prosperous economy, living in great wealth and eventually leaving entire lives behind and fleeing empty-handed through Italy to Israel, having arrived... from Libya.

To this day, when I tell people I’m a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, they look at me and ask, "Wait, so you are half Ashkenazi, then?" I always hide my disappointment and pain that people don't know this part of the Holocaust. Most of them are stunned to hear, often for the first time, that the truth is it didn’t spare our Sephardic brothers either.

Believe it or not, but my dear grandmother Najima, may she rest in peace (Kochava in Hebrew), and my grandfather Ephraim, may he rest in peace (after whom I am named, and who passed away a few months before I was born, so I never knew him), were in a concentration camp in Libya. My grandfather, who was then a young man (and probably somewhat naive...), even lost one of his eyes by a German "doctor" he visited for treatment of a severe eye infection in the camp... That doctor instilled "eye drops" that later were found to be alcohol, a toxic and severe substance, causing him to lose sight in one eye completely and leaving him with a significant reminder of that time, apart from the scars on his soul that accompanied him until his death.

My grandparents had no number tattooed on their arms to tell their story, but the harsh impressions from there remained deep within their souls... My grandmother rarely spoke about that time, but until her last day, she would scream in her sleep, awakened by the trauma that emerged from the depths of her subconscious when she finally managed to fall asleep.

This story reveals perhaps more than anything another part of our history, which most of us aren't really connected to: the Holocaust of North African Jews entirely.

The 'Silent' Holocaust

Historically, everything began with the rise of the anti-Semitic Vichy regime to power in France in 1938. Then, the lives of about 415,000 Jews (!), in various other countries including Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, changed irrevocably.

In Libya, the Italians started imposing racial laws that were enacted in Germany in 1938. Part of this involved marking their passports, limiting their cultural activities, and most severely: thousands were sent to camps, including Sidi al-Aziz, Buka Buk, and the main and largest camp, the Jadu concentration camp. Hundreds met their ends in these camps due to hunger and disease. My grandfather and grandmother themselves stayed in this camp and with tremendous heavenly mercy also survived and were rescued, eventually managing to escape to Italy, as mentioned, and from there came to Israel to establish a grand Jewish home.

Sadly, the fate of other Jews who lived in Libya at that time was different: those with foreign citizenship were sent to European concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, Innsbruck, and a minority even to Auschwitz.

Subsequently, starting in June 1942, the racial discrimination laws in Libya were expanded, and many Jews were conscripted for forced labor. Ultimately, during the war, about 6,000 Jews from Libya were sent to forced labor and concentration camps. Out of approximately 30,000 Libyan Jews, more than 700 were killed and died in the Holocaust.

In Morocco, the Vichy rule began its ascent from the summer of 1940. Here, severe discrimination laws were enacted, and many Jews were sent to forced labor.

The Jews of Algeria also suffered significantly, given their previously high social status. In 1941, their assets were confiscated, they were forced to bear a badge of shame, forbidden to work in public jobs such as banks, limits were imposed on their school admissions, and their number was restricted in the liberal professions. Consequently, some joined the anti-Nazi underground, and many were captured and sent to labor camps or executed. At the same time, the Jewish councils in Algeria were required to assist in preparing shipments for extermination.

Later, in November 1942, the German army also entered Tunisia. There, many suffered humiliating treatment, confiscation of property, and were conscripted into forced and fortification labor. In Djerba, the capital city, they even had to establish a kind of local Jewish council that gathered about 6,000 Jews from the city into labor camps.

Ultimately, starting from November 1942, the Allied forces began liberating North Africa, thereby saving the North African Jews from the fate of their European counterparts.

In total, we are talking about nearly half a million Jews who were part of the Holocaust of the Jewish people. They were discriminated against, their property seized, sent to forced labor, murdered, forced to bear a mark of shame, suffered hunger and disease, and were sent to concentration and extermination camps. But for some reason, somehow, this part was omitted from our historical and Jewish discourse.

This is the 'silent' Holocaust, not to say the denied one. The 'little sister' that never received proper recognition, wasn’t sufficiently exposed, and to this day is barely spoken of or mentioned in public discourse. Therefore, most of the stories of these survivors weren't respectfully and adequately documented in their lifetimes. Nor was the pain and trauma they carried all their lives. In my eyes, it's a missing piece in our puzzle. The historical, Jewish, human puzzle. And until it is completed and receives proper recognition, our puzzle will not be truly complete.