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| Entrance of Oued Zem |
In the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of camps and ghettos published by the USHMM, the camps in North Africa are part of it. It contains description of all the concentration camps in Morocco, written by several authors. One of them writes about the camp Oued Zem and tells that there were no Jews in it, neither Moroccan Jews nor European Jewish refugees. This isn’t true, several testimonies of Jewish refugees talk about their experience in the camp of Oued Zem and several reports of Jewish and non-Jewish organizations write about it.
The French Vichy authorities
established an internment camp in Oued Zem, Morocco, southeast of Casablanca
during the war. In 1940 it was a military camp and October 1940 Norwegian war
sailors, there ship had been boarded, were interned after a shortly stay in the
other camp Sidi EL Ayachi. The camp was under the authority of the Directorate
of Political Affairs (Direction des Affairs Politique). The nearby Moulay
Bouazza working camp (around seventy km) was under the responsibility of
‘Direction de la Production Industrielle et du Travail’.
In the documents the camp Oued Zem is described in different ways: refugee camp, a holding camp, an internment camp or a camp of triage (selection), in the words of the German Armistice Commission: Auswahllager (selection camp), or centre d’Hébergement, or Durchgangslager für unerwünschten Ausländer (transit camp for unwanted foreigners). In the words of this commission, the refugees were examined and forwarded to other camps. The Moulay Bouazza labor camp, close to Oued Zem, interned the unwanted foreigners whose residency permit had expired and could not return home. The commission defined them as die Ausländische arbeiter sind unerwünschte Ausländer (the foreign workers are unwanted foreigners).
The numbers of Jewish refugees
vary like in the other camp of Sidi El Ayachi. People died of all kind of
diseases or were selected to work in a labor camp in the East or somewhere else
or came back because they were ill.
What was the camp like, what
were the conditions? I have gathered some personal stories, of the Jewish
refugees Lilli Joseph, Harry Adler and Altman. They all came with the ship
Wyoming spring 1941. I studied reports from the International Red Cross, several
Jewish international relief and refugee organizations and letters and notes
from the German Armistice Commission. The Norwegian war sailors wrote also a
lot of information about this camp.
Lilli Joseph told her story to the interviewers of the Steven Spielberg Project (USC Shoah Foundation), which aimed to gather the stories of all survivors for posterity. In paraphrased words: “The camp consisted of thinly-roofed barracks which never cooled down. There were rats everywhere. We also lived together with Arabs and men and women were not kept separate either – which proved to be disastrous. Meanwhile, we were accused of jewelry theft. People were dying of malaria, diphtheria and dysentery, and some managed to escape. I just couldn’t believe it when people told me we didn’t stand a chance of survival – I refused to give up hope. Also, I was very sick. They gave me some work as a secretary at the camp’s hospital, where I also had to make tea for patients suffering from syphilis. I got along quite well with my French superior. While he offered me cheese, I told him that we were only refugees passing through, certainly not the thieves we were made out to be. I asked him to help me with sending telegrams to inform outsiders of our whereabouts. He finally believed me and gave me permission to send telegrams. In this way, an uncle of mine in the US was informed of our plight. Pretty soon, things began to move. Within months, the blinded train brought us back to Casablanca, from where the yacht MS Guinee brought us to Ellis Island, New York, where we arrived in August 1941.”
Harry Adler wrote his memoirs, parts of these were given to me by his daughter. “The barracks at Oued Zem were a disaster. Spring was already like a hot summer. There were few windows and most of the existing ones were broken. The place looked as if it had been abandoned as being unsafe, unsanitary and beyond repair. And, there we were, some 120 people, surrounded by a dozen soldiers to make sure that their "Hosts" did not escape! We did not know what the future held for us. The "Old Timers" promptly fell apart. These people, with their spouses and children came from good homes, many owned businesses, had accumulated wealth and a bourgeois attitude. There was much wailing! It was the young people (teenagers and young adults) who took over. Some twenty five youngsters, myself included, decided to clean up the barracks, assigned each family an area of the barracks to assure a minimum of privacy, began work in the kitchen which was a small shack with a large coal burning stove, not to mention the flies and old grease and we also built latrines. Within a matter of a few days, the families were unpacked and were dealing with the situation as best as they could by sharing items among themselves. The French brought in some basic food items by truck and a cooking and dining schedule was soon organized. My duties were simple. I became the procurement manager for the kitchen. Since my French was the best in the group, it was my job to be the liaison between the "Refugees" as we were called and the troupes that were guarding us. Some of these were quite friendly and were quite helpful to all of us. They did not have good things to say about the "Les Bosches" (Germans) and encouraged the idea that we would be soon released (…). They did not realize at the time that the war was to continue for almost four years! The French soldiers did not have much respect for the "locals" either. They consisted of Arabs and Bedouins. They became our providers of food which they brought in on donkeys almost daily. They were a miserable and noisy lot, dressed in dirty white caftans with hoods, some of them brought their little children with them to the camp. Flies buzzed around them all the time without them seeming to mind! Some of our families were kosher! I had all kinds of problems with the meat and had to provide a lot of fruits and dairy products for these people. In retrospect, I think I acquitted myself rather well in spite of protests here and there. Nobody went hungry! We were interned for about four months if memory serves me correctly. While life was a daily drudgery, it was bearable especially since I became rather friendly with one of the teenaged girls a couple of barracks down from where we ‘lived’.”
Although short descriptions in telegram-style, the Jewish refugee Altman, and many other refugees, send telegrams to the Jewish relief organization HIAS HICEM explaining their difficult situation in the camp. They asked for help to continue their journey to the US and Altman ended his telegram of the 10th of June 1941 with the words “situation penible”.
On the 14th August 1942 Dr. Wyss-Dunant of the
International Red Cross Committee from Genève visited the camp of Oued Zem. A
year later than the period the named refugees were interned, spring and summer
1941. A different time and at the moment of his visit no Jewish refugees were
interned, in any case he didn’t mention, although 188 persons undefined were in
hospital. About the buildings in the camp he had the same impression as
witnessed by the Jewish refugees. And his conclusion was that this camp needs
to be greatly improved. Perhaps the Encyclopedia of the USHMM relied only on this source of the
international Red Cross for the observation that no Jews were interned in the
camp of Oued Zem which isn’t true, perhaps only for the day in August 1942 when
Wyss-Dunant visited this camp.