Abstract
In the absence of documentation, oral testimonies of Sephardic and Oriental Holocaust survivors serve as important sources for remembering and learning about the Holocaust in the Balkans, North Africa, and Iraq during World War II. Furthermore, the published testimonies are an additional way of including Sephardic and Oriental Jewry in the Holocaust historiography, which has largely ignored the non-Ashkenazic Jews who suffered in the Holocaust in the death camps, in hiding, or during their escape from their home countries. Since Holocaust museum exhibitions have often failed to represent Sephardic Jewry as Holocaust victims, Sephardi oral testimonies are educational tools and vehicles for raising public awareness about the theme.
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Notes
See interview of Nina Matithias of Salonika and her description of hiding in Ios Lavrendios in the mountains outside of Volos, Greece, in Brana Gurewitsch (ed.), Mothers, Sisters, Resisters, Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the Holocaust (Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1998), pp.26–32.
Rebecca Camhi Fromer, The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando (Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1993), pp.63–81.
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘Greece and Illegal Immigration, 1934–1947’, in Itshaq Gershon (ed.), Shorashim Bamizra’h, vol.iv (Efal: Yad Tabenkin, 1998), pp.241–282. [Hebrew]
Shmuel Refael (ed.), Routes of Hell, Greek Jewry in The Holocaust, Testimonies (Tel Aviv: The Institute for the Research of Salonikan Jewry and The Organization of Greek Death Camp Survivors in Israel, 1988), pp. 106–113 [Hebrew].
Miriam Novitch, Le Passage Des Barbares, Contribution a l’Histoire de la Deportation et de la Resistance des Juifs grecs (Kibbutz Lochamei Getaot, Israel: Ghetto Fighters House Publishers, 1982).
Gideon Greif, Wir weinten tranenlos… Augenzeugenberichte der judischen ‘Sonderkommandos’ in Auschwitz (Koln: Bohlau Verlag, 1995);
Leon Cohen, ‘The Revolt of the Crematoria Workers’, in Greek Jewry In The Holocaust, Memoirs (Tel Aviv: The Institute of Salonikan Jewry, 1988), pp.75–113 [Hebrew];
Leon Cohen, From Greeece to Birkenau, The Crematoria Workers’ Uprising (Tel Aviv: The Salonika Jewry Research Center, 1996); and see the 1999 BBC documentary film of Sheldon Lazarus, Auschwitz, the Last Witness which includes interviews with the Greek Jewish former Sonderkommando workers Dario Gabai, and the brothers Shlomo and Isaak Venezia.
Yad Vashem Archives, 03/2598/174-Lamed, Testimony of Albert Levi. See also Yosef Ben, Greek Jewry in the Holocaust And The Resistance 1941–1944 (Tel Aviv: Institute for the Research of Salonikan Jewry, 1985), pp.157–168 [Hebrew].
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘Forgotten Heroes: Greek Jewry in the Holocaust’ in Menachem Mor (ed.), Crisis and Reaction: The Hero In Jewish History (Omaha: Creighton University Press, 1995), pp.229–238; and
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘Alberto Levi’, Computerized Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (Los Angeles: Wiesenthal Center, 1989). Also, interviews with Albert Levi, 8 June 1986, 25 June 1986, 12 August 1986.
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘The Survival of the Jews of Zakynthos in the Holocaust’, Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division B. vol.ii. (Jerusalem: The World Union of Jewish Studies, 1990), pp.387–394;
Bracha Rivlin, Yitzchak Kerem, and Lea Bornstein-Makovetsky, Pinkas HaKehillot Yavan, Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities from their Foundation till after the Holocaust, Greece (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998), pp.51, 131–143, [Hebrew]; and
Steven Bowman, ‘Jews in Wartime Greece’, Jewish Social Studies, 48(1), (Winter 1986): 45–62.
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘Rescue Attempts of Jews in Greece during the Second World War’, Pe’amim 27 (1986), pp.77–109 [Hebrew].
Michael Matsas, The Illusion of Safety, The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War (New York: Pella Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 153–155.
Jenny Lebel, Ge’ut Veshever — Pride and Shatter — Chapters in the History of the Jews of Vardarian Macedonia (Jerusalem: Moreshet — Council of Sephardic and Oriental Jewish Communities in Jerusalem, and the Center for the Intergration of the Oriental Jewish Heritage of the Israeli Ministry of Educationa and Culture, 1986) [Hebrew];
Jenny Lebel, The History of the Jews in Pirot (Belgrade: Privredni Pregled and Pirot: Sloboda, 1990) [Serbo-Croat];
and Jenny Lebel, Jevreji Iz Jugoslavije Ratni Vojni Zarobljenici U Nemackoj, A Memorial of Yugoslavian Jewish Prisoners of War, Half a Century after Liberation 1945–1995 (Tel Aviv, 1995).
Menachem Shelach (ed.), History of the Holocaust, Yugoslavia (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990), pp. 172–200 [Hebrew].
Interview by Yitzchak Kerem with Rudi Abravanel, Kibbutz Shar Haamakim, Israel, April 18 1988. See also Zvi Loker (ed.), Pinkas Hakehillot, Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Yugoslavia (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1988), pp.279–280 [Hebrew].
Gitta Amipaz-Silber, Sephardi Jews in Occupied France Under The Tyrant’s Heel1940–1944 (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass Ltd., 1995).
See also Daniel Carpi, The Italian Authorities and the Jews of France and Tunisia during the Second World War (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1993), pp.123–130. [Hebrew]
See also Shmuel Moreh and Zvi Yehuda (eds.), Hatred of Jews and the Farhud in Iraq (Or Yehuda: The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, 1992) [Hebrew].
Galia Limor, ‘Six Survivors Remember: Torch Lighters 1999’, Yad Vashem Quarterly Magazine, 13 (Spring 1999), pp.10–11.
Renzo De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, Libya, 1835–1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), pp.179–180.
Irit Abramski-Bligh (ed.), Pinkas Hakehillot, Libya-Tunisia, Encyclopedia of the Jewish Communities from their Foundation till After the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1997), pp.67, 167. [Hebrew]
Maurice M. Roumani, ‘Aspects of the Holocaust in Libya’ in Haham Dr. Solomon Gaon and Mitchell Serels (eds.), Del Fuego, Sephardim and the Holocaust (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1995), pp.122–128.
See Erika Kounio-Amarlio and Albertos Nar, Oral Testimonies of the Jews of Thessaloniki on the Holocaust (Thessaloniki: Ets Achaim and Paratiritis, 1998) [Greek];
Frangiski Abatzopoulou, The Holocaust in Testmonies of Greek Jews (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1993) [Greek];
Rika Benveniste (ed.), The Jews of Greece in the Occupation (Thessaloniki: Banias, 1998), pp.77–91 [Greek].
Rebecca Camhi Fromer, The House By The Sea, A Portrait Of The Holocaust in Greece (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1998).
Isaac Jack Levy, And the World Stood Silent: The Sephardic Poetry of the Holocaust (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989) and his translation of a Judeo-Spanish poem written by Violette Fintz, a Holocaust survivor from the Island of Rhodes [Pamphlet published by the United Council of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and South African Board of Deputies Cape Council in memory of Yom Hashoa Vehagevura, ‘Holocaust Martyr’s and Heroes’, a Memorial Meeting, (April 29 1984)].
Yitzchak Kerem, ‘The Music of the Greek Jews in the Holocaust’, in Steven Stanton and Alexander Knapp (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jewish Music, City University, London, April 1994 (London: City University Department of Music, 1997), pp.46–52.
See the Auschwitz song of Salonikan survivor David Haim ‘Siete Dias Seradas’ in Susana Weich-Shahak, Buketto de Copias (Jerusalem: Renanot, 1993);
Susana Weich-Shahak and Edwin Seroussi, Tsror Shirim Mipee Yehudei Sefarad [A String of Songs from Sephardic Jewry] (Jerusalem: Renanot, 1992); and National Sound Archive (Phonoteka). Jerusalem. Recording of Rene Bivas (Salonika), NSA D-30/27 Recorded by Susana Weich-Shahak, Tel Aviv, 7 November 1993.
See also Moshe Aelion, ‘La Jovenika a Lager’ (The Young Girl in the Camp) Aki Yerusalayim 57 (1998), pp.54–56.
Isaac Jack Levy, Jewish Rhodes: A Lost Culture (San Francisco: Judah L. Magnes Museum, 1989), pp.80–83.
Shmuel Refael, ‘The Holocaust in the Poetry of Haim Hazan from Salonica’ in Shmuel Refael (ed.), We Shall Not Forget! Annual, Second Generation Organization of Greek Holocaust Survivors from Death Camps, vol.xiv (Tel Aviv: Second Generation Organization of Greek Holocaust Survivors from Death Camps, 1999) pp.56–57 [Hebrew];
Shmuel Refael, ‘Breaking the Silence, the Memoirs of Greek Holocaust Survivors in Israel’, Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 19 (Winter 1996): 32–41; Shmuel Refael, ‘The Holocaust of Greek Jewry in Ladino Literature’, Machanaim (Kislev 5755, December 1995): 140–147 [Hebrew];
and Shmuel Refael, ‘The Subject of the Holocaust in Current Ladino Song’, Apirion 9 (1998), pp.60–64 [Hebrew].
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Kerem, Y. (2001). Sephardic and Oriental Oral Testimonies. In: Roth, J.K., Maxwell, E., Levy, M., Whitworth, W. (eds) Remembering for the Future. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-66019-3_142
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