The Silent Holocaust: Remembering the Forgotten Story of North African Jews

Before anything else, I have a small confession: for a long time, something has been weighing on my heart. Something deep, tied to the very roots of my family. And the timing of Holocaust Remembrance Day brings it all to the surface again — perhaps even making it the best moment to finally speak about it.

I was born and raised in a warm Sephardic home in central Israel. For me, the Holocaust was always a fragile, explosive subject — a day of national mourning, but also a personal one. I don’t think I’ve ever truly managed to contain or digest its meaning, no matter how many years have passed. I always felt a special connection to that period and to survivors, with whom I later had the privilege to volunteer closely.

As I grew older, I was introduced to history lessons in school. No subject fascinated me the way history did, especially the classes that dealt with the Holocaust. Every week, I found myself waiting eagerly for those lessons.

Looking back now, I realize that much of my Jewish identity — and later, my journey toward religious observance, was shaped by that period. It came from the collective trauma, the raw questions, and the insistence on facing them directly, placing them “on the operating table” to seek answers. Out of the abyss grew a faith that goes beyond logical reasoning, shaped alongside questions that, perhaps, we will never be able to answer.

For me, the Holocaust was always about the Jews of Europe: Poland, Germany, Romania, Hungary, the Netherlands, and others. I could never bring myself to visit the camps in Poland. But when I traveled to the Netherlands, I insisted on visiting Anne Frank’s house, even if it meant waiting half a day in a long line — one that, to my surprise, wasn’t filled only with Jews. Yet that visit left me deeply disappointed. The attic had been turned into a popular tourist site, with Anne’s story framed almost like a “cool tale” of a teenage girl hiding, rather than a raw testimony of the horrors of the Holocaust. For me, it felt dangerously close to Holocaust denial, or at least distortion. Perhaps that's a subject for another essay.

The Shocking Discovery

One day, I discovered to my astonishment that I myself am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. This, despite being Sephardic on both sides, with Israeli-born parents and grandparents who were part of a thriving Jewish community, living in great wealth — until they left everything behind and fled through Italy to Israel, coming not from Poland or Germany, but from Libya.

To this day, when I tell people I’m the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, they often look at me and ask: “So wait, you’re half Ashkenazi too?” And I always hide the sting of disappointment — because so many people don’t know this part of the Holocaust. Most are shocked to learn, often for the very first time, that the Holocaust did not bypass Sephardi Jews.

Believe it or not, my dear grandmother Najima (Kochava in Hebrew), and my grandfather Ephraim — after whom I was named, were imprisoned in a concentration camp in Libya. My grandfather, a young man at the time, even lost one of his eyes after going to a German “doctor” in the camp to treat an infection. The so-called doctor poured spirit — a harsh toxic chemical, into his eye, blinding him permanently in one eye and leaving him with a scar he carried for the rest of his life, alongside the inner wounds that never healed.

Unlike European survivors, my grandparents had no tattooed number on their arms to tell their story, but the scars of their suffering were etched deep inside. My grandmother rarely spoke of those years, but until her last day she would wake screaming from nightmares, the trauma erupting from her subconscious whenever she finally managed to fall asleep.

The Forgotten Chapter: The Holocaust of North African Jews

This story reveals another layer of our history — one most of us are hardly connected to: the Holocaust of North African Jewry.

Historically, it began with the rise of the antisemitic Vichy regime in France in 1938. Overnight, the lives of some 415,000 Jews in countries like Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco changed forever.

In Libya, Italian authorities implemented Germany’s racial laws. Jewish passports were marked, cultural life was restricted, and worst of all, thousands were deported to camps such as Sidi Azaz, Bukbuk, and the largest, Jadu. Hundreds perished in Jadu from hunger and disease. My grandparents were among those imprisoned there, and by immense divine mercy, they survived, later escaping through Italy and eventually rebuilding their lives in Israel.

Not all were so fortunate. Some Libyan Jews with foreign citizenship were deported to camps in Europe, including Bergen-Belsen, Innsbruck, and even Auschwitz.

By June 1942, racial laws in Libya expanded further, and many Jews were conscripted into forced labor. In total, around 6,000 Libyan Jews were sent to labor and concentration camps. Out of 30,000 Libyan Jews, more than 700 were murdered during the Holocaust.

In Morocco, starting in 1940 under Vichy rule, harsh antisemitic laws were enforced and many Jews were sent to forced labor camps.

In Algeria, where Jews had once enjoyed high social status, everything changed in 1941. Their property was confiscated, they were forced to wear identifying marks, barred from public service jobs, restricted in schools, and excluded from many professions. Some joined the anti-Nazi resistance, but many were caught and executed or sent to forced labor camps. Even the Jewish council (Judenrat) in Algeria was forced to assist with deportation lists.

In Tunisia, the German army entered in late 1942. Jews suffered confiscation of property, forced labor, and the establishment of local Jewish councils. In Djerba, around 6,000 Jews were forced into labor camps.

Eventually, beginning in November 1942, the Allied forces liberated North Africa — saving its Jews from the full fate that befell European Jewry.

The Silent, Overlooked Holocaust

Nearly half a million Jews in North Africa endured persecution during the Holocaust. They were marked, their property seized, were subjected to forced labor, starvation, and death. Some were deported to concentration and extermination camps in Europe.

Somehow, this chapter of history was left out of the broader Jewish and historical narrative. This was the “Silent Holocaust” — the overlooked, unrecognized “little sister” that never received its due place in collective memory.

Because of this silence, the stories of many survivors from North Africa were never properly recorded, nor was their trauma honored. For me, this remains a missing piece in our historical, Jewish, and human puzzle. Until it is given its rightful recognition, the puzzle of our collective memory will never be complete.