woensdag 6 oktober 2021
Lecture (14) Conference Paris Nov 2019: Jews from the Axis countries
The worsening of the situation in the camps was especially true for those originating from Axis countries. The decision to exclude the internees from Axis Powers from liberation out of the camps, was made by General Giraud, commander of the French troops in North Africa. And the Allies would not employ and contract citizens of the Axis countries in the US Forces, regardless of their individual records. The reason was just a military one, they said. The French authorities in Rabat went even further by declaring that the camps were filled with Communists and Reds. This led to an impossible situation, as described in a note of Leslie Heath, representative of the Quaker organization AFSC in North Africa in January 1943. Several internees were not released or protected by the Americans, but instead, mistreated by the French police. Moreover, the French authorities in Rabat delayed the release of the Axis internees with arguments like: “dangerous person, the law or they are fascists”. Nearly all the refugees from the Axis Powers were Jews.
A correspondence between the Direction des Affaires Politique (directorate of Political Affairs) in Rabat and Hélène Cazes-Benatar of the refugee committee in Casablanca in January 1943 shows the absurdity of this situation. The directorate writes to madam Cazes Benatar who cannot be released. The first mentioned in the letter is a Jewish man from an Axis country. In her reaction, she states that this Jewish man cannot be considered as an enemy of the Allied because he is Jewish and therefore, he is an anti-Nazi, she writes. The attitude of the directorate looks like a pure administrative attitude, but is it? Was this whole policy directed against Jews? For now, I have to conclude it was, because almost all the internees from the Axis countries were Jews. I think it was a manner to discriminate and harass them.