Benghazi-Bergen-Belsen

Benghazi-Bergen-Belsen is the first novel in Hebrew—and almostcertainly in any language—to tell the story of the Jews of Libya inthe Holocaust. Set from the time of the German occupation of Libya in1941 until the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945,it portrays the saga of the Hajaj family, distinguished members of theJewish community of Benghazi, who are uprooted from their beloved cityand homeland. Together with other Libyan Jews, they are transported byship from the searing Sahara desert to Italy, to a detention camp in themountains, and from there by train to Germany, to be incarcerated and diein Bergen-Belsen.

Three journeys are interwoven in the novel: One relates the hardshipsexperienced by the Libyan Jews, and the master-slave relationship thatarises between the children of black Africa and their Italian and Germanimprisoners; Another is the coming-of-age story of the heroine, SilvanaHajaj, an educated, intelligent and good-looking young woman whorejects the patriarchal norms of her background; The third is an acousticaljourney into the sounds of the different languages spoken by the characters,especially the Libyan Jewish Arab dialect.

The novel is very different from other, more familiar accounts of theHolocaust: It is the Holocaust of Jews from Arab countries, whose darkskin and Arabic language place them on an even lower rung on the Naziracial scale than European Jews. They are viewed as aliens even by theEuropean Jews who share their fate; they are foreign ‘others’ even on that‘Other Planet’, as some writers have described the world of the Holocaust.Based on facts, Benghazi-Bergen-Belsen rescues an important, butlargely forgotten chapter of history from oblivion.