The Arab Schindler
Unless this story is totally made up (which I doubt), there apparently was an Arab Schindler, albeit on a smaller scale.Satloff discovered Abdul-Wahab's story as he was researching his book. He had posted a message on a website popular with Tunisian Jews, who were now dispersed all over the world. He received a response from an old woman called Anny Boukris, now living in America, who remembered how her family had been saved by Abdul-Wahab.This story is probably true (I doubt that the Wiesenthal Center would have accepted it if it were not true), and if so, the man ought to be honored.
"The Arabs saved many Jews. I don't know very well these stories. I remember very well only our story," she wrote. That story, which Satloff slowly uncovered, was Abdul-Wahab's. It began in November 1942 after German and Italian troops occupied Tunisia, which was home to 100,000 Jews. Jews were forced to wear yellow stars and more than 5,000 were sent to forced labour camps, where at least 46 died.
Abdul-Wahab, a well-to-do farmer and son of an eminent Tunisian historian and writer, sheltered 24 people from two Jewish families on his farm after he overheard a Nazi officer planning to rape one of the women, Boukris's mother. He shielded them from harm by keeping them on his estate. He even intervened when a drunken German soldier threatened to kill one of the girls, shouting: "I know that you are Jews and I am going to kill you tonight!"
Like Schindler in occupied Poland, Abdul-Wahab protected those under his charge by remaining close to the German occupiers, often wining and dining them at parties. The crisis finally ended when the Allies liberated the country four months later. Abdul-Wahab, who died in 1997, has been honoured by numerous Jewish groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Yet the story of Arabs, Jews and Nazis in North Africa remains an ignored but important chapter in the Holocaust's history. Satloff believes that only by confronting the historic truth – that Arabs helped Jews as much (or as little) as anyone else – can some of the problems of the present be tempered.
Yes, there are a few good Arabs in the World. There were Arabs who saved Jews during the Hebron pogrom in 1929.
But unfortunately, the overwhelming majority, especially among the leadership, are Jew haters.
Maybe the government should invite the Holocaust-denying Abu Mazen to attend the ceremony if Abdul-Wahab gets the award. Heh.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:43 PM
6 Comments:
There are a few decent Arabs but the vast majority of them hate Jews. Until that changes there will be no peace in the Middle East in our lifetime.
The Guardian makes it sound like it was the Nazi's who dispersed the Tunisian Jews "all over the world". Of course they don't say that it was the Arabs themselves who massacred and expelled the Jews in 1948 and 1967. Very typical of the Guardian.
what the book and the pbs program point out is that at least in nazi controlled northern africa, the arabs were just as involved in the holocaust as were the europeans
so, their protestations not withstanding (never mind that the creation of the state has little to do with the holocaust itself) arabs are indeed just as culpable as the rest of the world
this man should be honored...and a film should be made about his life...as long as they show what the rest of the arab world was doing at the time.
Mizrahi Jewry suffered from massacres, pogroms, torture, indignities, the rape of their women, abduction and conversion of their children to Islam and very severe restrictions on their freedom. Their lives depended greatly on the whims of the Muslim ruler and the mood of the local population. No Jew, however lowly a dhimmi he might be and subservient, could never be certain his life was truly secure. The vast majority of the Arabs hate the Jews and would kill them all if they could. And the existence of a few decent Arabs doesn't change this depressing picture. They are the exception and in truth even today Judeophobia is the rule and not the exception in the Muslim World and this fact must never be forgotten - every Jew is on their hit list.
That is why we won't see peace happen in the Middle East in our lifetime.
Are we playing "Can You Top This"?
The Goering Schindler
For its worth, Caroline Glick linked to Netanyahu's speech. Its pretty good and the quotation from Isaiah is the inspiration behind Yad Vashem.
Its here:
Read it all
I do believe he does get it. Now the question is what to do about Iran.
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