Of a different character than Sidi El Ayachi and Oued Zem were the refugee camps in the then wealthy suburb Aïn Sebaa of Casablanca. These camps were temporary shelters (centre d'hébergement). The Jewish refugees were temporarily roofed in anticipation of their transit to America or another country oversea.
At the beginning of 1942 the Moroccan authorities (read Vichy) decided that the transit refugees in Casablanca were not allowed to admit freely anymore, due to their very high number, but to isolate them in fairly light police surveillance locations, in a suburb of Casablanca, in three halls. The refugee committee of Hélène Cazes-Benatar and the American Joint Distribution Committee rented the ball rooms and paid for everything. Except the locations in Aïn Sebaa, the refugee committee rented two houses in the city of Casablanca, meant for those who had permission to leave the camp.
Hotel Lunapark was one the locations in Aïn Sebaa (photo 2017 ckb). It was a former ball room in hotel Lunapark, where between 125 and 200 refugees could be roofed. Though they had to pay fees - it wasn’t a hotel at the time - the Jews were required to perform statute labour, be of good behaviour, and it was prohibited for them to engage in political, religious or racial polemics. If they didn’t meet these conditions, their entry tickets would be withheld. The refugees were guarded by the French police, but they could leave during the day.
The second location was ‘Beaulieu’, on the corner of Lunapark, for around 125 to 200 refugees (photo 2017 ckb).
The third one was an old holiday resort along the coastline which was called ‘La Guinguette Fleurie’. With a taxidriver I tried to find this place, but unfortunately.
In Yad Vashem I listened to some memories of interned refugees. One was Ronald Berez, a Polish young Jewish man. He didn’t mention the name but I suppose it was Lunapark. In summarized words “It was a Kafkaesque place, dirty, bad food, flies, extremely primitive, many diseases. We were prisoners. The French guards were lousy, they were passive aggressive, they were bastards, they didn’t torture, but used mental violence. I don’t know if they were anti-Semitic. I was tormented by their authoritarian behavior of command and coercion, so it was mental violence.” The other testimonies didn’t mention a lot of this place other than that the food was terrible, it was dirty with a lot of flies and bad beds etc.
