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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | It Could Have Happened There: The Jews of Libya during the Second World War |
Author: | Simon, Rachel |
Year: | 1994 |
Periodical: | Africana Journal |
Volume: | 16 |
Pages: | 391-422 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Libya |
Subjects: | Jews racism World War II Religion and Witchcraft History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
Abstract: | This paper examines the situation of the Jews in Libya during World War II. Besides the suffering that the Jews of Libya underwent with the rest of the population as a result of the military operations and the economic hardship, the 33,000-strong community was further harmed economically, socially and culturally by the racial legislation promulgated in Italy in 1938. In addition to restrictions and prohibitions in the realms of employment, property ownership and education, some 5,000 Jews were forcibly transferred to concentration and labour camps inside and outside Libya, and a few hundred even reached concentration camps in Germany and Austria. However, the Jews of Libya were saved from a predicament similar to that of European Jewry under Nazi rule thanks to their invulnerability to Libya's economic and administrative life, the Italian character (the Italian authorities did not hasten to apply the racial legislation in full), and the British-French occupation. The occupation interrupted a process that had started with the racial legislation, moved to expulsion, internal exile and forced labour, and aimed at the 'Final Solution'. Note, ref. |