In the former half of 1942, many Jews escaped Europe via Casablanca and set sail for America on numerous ships. In three months, some 2500 refugees took this route. I saw the lists of the ships and the passengers with the dates of departure in the archive of Hélène Cazes-Benatar in Jerusalem and Michel Abitbol summarized these in his book
Vichy and the Jews of North Africa. According his figures, from March the 15th till 6th of July 1942 a lot of ships passed Casablanca on their way to Cuba or the US. One of the largest convoy came from Lisbon in the beginning of June with 176 passengers and embarking in Casablanca 502 refugees. The refugee flow continued until September 1942, but much less numerous.
The Jewish relief and emigration organization HICEM noticed a change in the Vichy policy during the first months of 1942. The local and district authorities in France had received an order of the central Vichy authorities to facilitate the work of the relief organization in every possible way. The HICEM board was very content with this. But the reason behind this order was not so positive. The organization was been used to streamline the flow of the refugees in a well-organized and fast way. In the beginning of May 1942 HICEM in Marseille noticed this change for the first time. Suddenly men between the age of 18-50 years old, who were fit for military service, were not allowed to leave the port of Marseille. A little time later, also the men unfit for the service could not sail out. A report of HICEM wrote that this was an order of the Armistice Commission.
Around the same time, end of 1941, beginning of 1942, the chef of the police in Casablanca wrote a letter to the director of the ‘Services du Securité publique in Rabat’ with the advice to settle the relief organization HICEM in Casablanca, so that it would be possible (paraphrased) “to get rid of all the ‘undesirables’ in Morocco (he means the new refugees and the ones in the concentration camps) as quick as possible and to let them go the new free world. And in the meantime detain them in a location for a short time”. I suppose he means Lunapark and the other locations I have mentioned in my previous post, in Ain Sebaa. So, what was happening, why such a flow of European Jewish refugees?
