Benghazi-Bergen-Belsen - Softcover

Sucary, Yossi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1533529817 ISBN 13: 9781533529817

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

An epic romance retrieves from oblivion the lost story of the Holocaust of North African Jews

Silvana Haggiag is a brilliant and beautiful young woman in her early twenties, dismissive of the patriarchal norms that govern her Jewish community in the Libyan city of Benghazi. When Silvana’s family is violently uprooted from its home and homeland, she is taken along with other Libyan Jews through the blazing Sahara Desert and war driven Italy to freezing Germany. In the long and tumultuous journey from her birth town to the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, Silvana’s, navigating her family through horror and distress, she is confronted with dire dilemmas and retrieves hidden strengths. Away from her language, detached from any familiar ground, she is forced to cope with the terrors of a cruel and arbitrary humanity, and prevail.

A breathtaking novel based on profoundly detailed historical research

Benghazi-Bergen-Belzen, the first novel about the Holocaust of Libyan Jews, brilliantly depicts the transformations and tribulations this intriguing community has undergone during the Second World War. Violently uprooted from their autonomic lifestyle and thrown into a language, culture and geography completely foreign to their own, Libyan Jews, Like other Jews living among Arabic speaking Muslims, were doomed to profound detachment, cut off even from the new ways of life formed among the camps’ prisoners. Placed at the bottom of the Nazi race-hierarchy for their oriental origin, they were incomprehensible to the European eye and perceived as intimidating, even by their fellow European Jewish prisoners. The novel was chosen by the Israeli Ministry of Education to be included in the Holocaust studies program for high school students.

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About this title

From the Author

THEJEWISH CHRONICLE ONLINE | Interview: Yossi Sucary
 
 
OnYom Hashoah, Yossi Sucary watched with pride as two Libyan Holocaust survivorsjoined the ceremony at the Israeli presidential complex. It was a marked changefrom his childhood, when teachers would tell him he'd "made up" hisBenghazi-born mother's experiences at the hands of the Nazis.
 
"Itold my teacher that my mother and grandmother had told me their horriblestories about the Nazis in Libya," recalls Sucary, an Israeli author,academic and board member of the social justice organisation, the New IsraelFund. "She said "you're mistaken. Only the European Jews were in theHolocaust.' "
 
InIsrael, the Holocaust is almost always front of mind. Yet for decades, explainsSucary, whose novel Benghazi - Bergen-Belsen has just been published on Amazon,almost nothing was said publicly about the experiences of the Jews of Benghazi,Tripoli and beyond after the Nazis occupied Libya in 1942.
 
"Theysuffered from the Holocaust in the most brutal way, like their brothers inEurope, but people didn't know about it in Israel," says Sucary, shakinghis head. "We call it the unspoken Holocaust."
 
Evennow, the story of the Libyan Jews during the Holocaust remains in the shadows.What's known is that after seizing the country, the Nazis created at least threeconcentration camps: Jado, Gharyan and Said al Aziz, where many died fromdisease or starvation alongside Nazi brutality. Jews were also transferredthrough Italy to Belsen and Birenbach Reiss. Many of the latter group, Sucary'sgrandparents included, were upper class Libyans who, by virtue of having workedin Egypt, held British passports. "The Nazis planned to make prisonersubstitutions," he explains.
 
Unlikein Europe, the Nazis did not keep meticulous records and the number of victimsis the subject of ongoing debate. Sucary puts it in the thousands, but is clearthat "every one of the 50,000 Libyan Jews suffered one way or another fromthe Nazi occupation... every family suffered from someone who was killed, woundedor collapsed."
Afterliberation, survivors were sent back to Libya. Vast numbers of Libyan Jewsjoined other Mizrachi communities and emigrated to Israel, where Sucary wasborn in 1959. Growing up hearing his mother wake from nightmares in which shewould cry "the Nazis are coming", in Arabic and Italian, Sucaryalways knew this story needed to be told.
 
Whenhis novel was published in Israel in 2014, it won critical praise - Sucaryreceived the prestigious Brenner Prize for Hebrew Literature -- and sentshockwaves around the intelligentsia, most of whom knew nothing about what hadhappened. A few historians had written about it, he says, but people didn't payattention. "Literature can encourage history to speak and that's whathappened. Now everybody knows about this story."
 
Thenovel tells of Silvana, a young woman who watches her community crumble anddisplays leadership in the face of this crisis. It is not his mother's story -she was just 10 when the Nazis arrived - but is inspired by it. Sucary's familywere wealthy - his grandfather a successful merchant importing buildingmaterial from Italy to North Africa - and had flourished in then-cosmopolitanBenghazi. "They lived a very good life and had relatively goodrelationships with the Arabs."
 
Whilethey survived, his mother's eight-year-old cousin was shot at close range, andother relatives perished. Beyond the atrocities, Sucary is struck by how thosetaken to German concentration camps survived against the odds; speaking Arabicnot Yiddish, used to warmer climates.
 
"Thinkabout the difference in the weather," he says. "They came from theSahara - they didn't even know what snow was."
 
Sucary'sbook is now on the Israeli education curriculum; he is hopeful futuregenerations will know what happened to Libya's Jews. But why did it take 70years?
 
"Ignorancecombined, I'm sorry to say, with a bit of racism,' he says. "AshkenaziIsraelis related to people from north Africa as people from an inferior culture."
 
Thediscrimination experienced by Mizrachi communities after independence, in areassuch as housing or education, is no secret in Israel. Even now, says Sucary,the contrasts with the Ashkenazim are stark and origins still define people'spaths; he points to poor representation of Mizrachim in politics, on theSupreme Court, in academia and in the media. "There is progress, mainly inthe arts, but not in the places that control the country,' he says. "Notin the places that establish the future of Israel."
 
Butthe father of four Ashkenazi children has little time for those who wish tocomplain about the past. His focus is on the future, and working with NIF andother organisations to invest in education and opportunities for Israel'smarginalised groups. NIF projects include working to challenge discriminationagainst Mizrachim in the Charedi education system, and ensuring Mizrachim get abetter deal in terms of municipal housing.
 
"Educationis the key word," says Sucary. "We have to support communities thathave been left behind. There are people who are so talented but they don't havethe opportunities that people in the centre of Israel have."
 
Now,he says, Israeli society is "ill". "We have to create a societythat is based on social justice for all segments, Jewish, Mizrachi Jews,Israeli Arabs, Ethiopians. It's in all of our interests. You cannot fight forone repressed segment and neglect the other. If you want to fix the Mizrachisituation you must support the situation of women, the gay community, and ofcourse the Arabs."
 
Thealienation felt by the Mizrachi Israelis, he contends, is one reason they backright-wing parties even when it's against their economic interests. "Forthem the establishment is the left", as it was in the early years ofIsrael. He suggests the right also better understands the religioustraditionalism of the community. "It's not just about financial interests,it's about identity. The left only bring universal values."
 
Hedraws a similarity between Israeli voting patterns and the EU referendum,saying he was not surprised by the result. "It was like revenge from thepoor people. They didn't feel the benefits of economic prosperity. It didn'ttrickle down," he posits. "It's like with the Palestinians, if theydon't enjoy from the fruits of peace they will not support the peace process.If people feel the country is taking care of them and they are given the sameopportunities, I believe peace will be established."
 
Heis hopeful about the chances of peace - "only 70 years ago the British andGerman were in an awful war, now there is peace, there can be in the MiddleEast as well" - and would like to see Mizrachim in the negotiations."I am absolutely sure that if Israel's leadership consisted of moreMizrachim we would have more chance of peace, because we are the same,Mizrachim and Arabs."
 
Despitethis optimism, he holds no hope of going to Libya and seeing the family home."I would love to," he says simply. "It's one of my dreams. But Icannot go."
 
Instead,his mission is to right an historic injustice and share the story of the LibyanJews. "The Mizrachi community sees this book as fixing the telling of thehistory, he says. "I want everybody in the world to know that Jews fromNorth Africa suffered from the Nazis as well."
 

Review

The novel'sgreatness is in the autonomous position it grants not only to the Holocaust ofthe Mizrahi Jews, but also to the past life in the country of origin. 

- Dr.Hanna Hertzig, "Haaretz Books" 

A work that isboth a linguistic and social event... The return to the stark naked reality ofBergen-Belsen, to the precise and poisoned moment in which the stripping of theidentity occurs, the testimony's attempt to deliver the identity, is at theheart of the book's brilliance. 
- ProfessorHaviva Pedaya, "HaOkets"

The best andmost important book written in the past year. 
- NissimKatz, "Yekum Tarbut"

Sucary's poetictalent and psychological profundity create a stirring and persuasivenovel. 
- TsurErlich, "Maariv"

A terrificbook. 
- RinoTzror, Galei Tzahal

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1533529817
• ISBN 13: 9781533529817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320