Conclusion lecture Conference Paris 2019

One of the main questions for my research for the conference was: "who were the main protagonists for interning the European civilian Jewish refugees in 1940-1941, did the Vichy government in Morocco take this decision under pressure of the German Nazis who resided there? I can’t answer this question, although the role and influence of the German Nazis in Morocco is probably greater than thought. Did the German Nazis advise to separate the men (sent to the labor camps) and women/children/disabled (to other camps)? Was it all an anti-Jewish Nazi decision? More research has to be done. But what I can conclude for sure, is that the German Nazis took the decision to stop the emigration of the civilian Jewish refugees out of Morocco in July 1942. Had the Allies after kicking out the German Nazis in Morocco, a special attention for the oppressed people as President Roosevelt stated after Operation Torch and were the French authorities kind to the Jewish refugees? My answer is, none of that. Both were preoccupied with their own interests, military or other, and harsh in their policy against Jews. But still I believe that on the geopolitical scene the Allies came at the right time to throw out the Nazis before they could implement possible further plans concerning the Moroccan Jews and European Jewish refugees. Anyway, it was not the purpose of Hitler to annex North Africa. The historian Norman Goda researched this topic (Hitler’s demand for Casablanca in 1940: Incident or Policy?, in 'The International History Review', XVI, 3, August 1994, pp 491-510) and he concluded that Hitler was only interested in having airfields around Casablanca to attack the US in the future and Hitler had no purpose to occupy France’s overseas territories. Whether the Nazis had further plans in Morocco has not yet been investigated to my knowledge. My research fits in a new scientific discussion of recent years. Is it the ‘Holocaust ánd or ín North Africa’. Formulated differently and drawn into a broader context, did the Nazis intend to exterminate the North African Jews and Jewish refugees? Was the Holocaust Europe-centered or not? Israël Guttman, former director of the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, believed in 1981 on base of statistical research that the Jews of North Africa were included in the Nazi plans for the ‘final solution’ (extermination). In 2018 Dan Michman and Haim Saadoun published as editors the book 'Les Juifs d’Afrique du Nord face à l’Allemagne nazie'. In this book the authors try to give an answer to the question: did the Nazis plan a Shoah of the Jews in North Africa? The editor Dan Michman concludes on base of thoroughly statistical research that the Nazi plans for extermination didn’t include the Jews of North Africa, so the Holocaust was Europe centered. This new question is also discussed in the edited book of Aomar Boum and Sarah Stein 'The Holocaust and North Africa'(2018). But because the research is not finished yet, they have decided to speak of the “Holocaust and North Africa”.