ISSUE 76
SPRING 2003
Download Archive Links Search Contact Us

 

The articles in this issue have been divided upinto the following categories

 

 

 

 

 

Letters


Dear Mr. Dangoor,

I am writing from Rabat, Morocco, my temporary home, to ask your assistance on a query regarding the topic of my current research, relations between Jews and Arabs during World War II. Specifically, I am trying to determine whether any Iraqi diplomats in Europe in the pre-war or early war years assisted Jews to leave Nazi or Fascist controlled countries. This is part of a larger project looking at what I call ''Arab heroes'' and ''Arab villains''. Individual Arabs who assisted Jews facing Nazi/Fascist persecution during the war and individual Arabs who themselves participated in that persecution.

I am an Oxford-trained historian-who served for the past decade as director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Feel free to check my bona fides with Sylvia Kedourie, Abbas Keliver, or the editors of the Jerusalem Report, who wrote such a favorable article on you some months ago.

My question to you was prompted by the following: In the course of my research, I came across the story of an Egyptian Muslim man and an Austrian Jewish woman who married in Berlin in May 1938. With their Egyptian marriage certificate, issued by the Egyptian embassy in Berlin, they were able to go to Cairo and then on to London, from where they secured exit visas for the woman's entire family, thereby saving them from the death camps.

This prompted a thought: Could there have been Arab diplomats in pre-war Europe who provided birth and marriage certificates for Jews: either for humanitarian or more mercenary reasons, thereby enabling them to escape the coming horror? (I don't devalue the action if mercenary instincts were involved; after all, it is the outcome that matters. Oskar Schindler, for example, was a businessman first and foremost.)

In those years, there were only two Arab countries with European embassies- Iraq and Egypt. Given the large Jewish populations in both Iraq and Egypt, it is not difficult to imagine various consular officers having special concern for Jews who appealed to them for help. I have been working on gaining access to Egyptian consular records of the period. So far, the Egyptians have not been forthcoming, but I remain hopeful. I have even less hope that Iraqi documents from the period still exist. Therefore, I am trying to trace Jewish families who may have fled Europe by coming to Iraq, either to stay in Iraq or moving from there to other places.
Have you ever heard stories of Jews approaching Iraqi missions for help or of Iraqi diplomats providing documents for European Jews in the pre-war years? Do you think it is possible? If yes, do you have advice for how to find proof? I apologize for this lengthy letter. I do hope you are able to respond.
Please accept my best wishes.

Cordially,

Robert Satloff

Naim Dangoor :

In 1941 the then Prime Minister of Iraq, Rashid Ali Gailani, Staged a pro-Nazi revolt which was defeated by the British Army and Rashid Ali and his government fled to Berlin where they remained throughout the war years, and were recognised by Germany as the legitimate government of Iraq.
Iraqi Jews in Europe, holding an Iraqi passport, were therefore automatically spared the German anti-Jewish decrees. Whether there were cases requiring the intervention of the Iraqi government in exile I cannot Say, However I can say that neither Rashid Ali nor his ministers were anti-Jewish.
Sephardi Jews were themselves Spared through the intervention of General Franco and were not treated as Ashkenazi Jews. In fact General Franco offered Spanish citizenship to all Sephardi Jews who asked for it, and many did.

i am not aware of any Jews approaching Iraqi consular missions for help, but as I lived for three of the war years in Istanbul I became aware of a continuing flow of European Jews to Turkey, and from there to Other parts of the Middle East, including Iraq, as well as, of course, to Palestine.


 

 

 

If you would like to make any comments or contribute to The Scribe please contact us.