{"title":"Ferramonti, not Palestine: The Failed Aliyah bet of the “Benghazi Group,” 1939–1943","authors":"Susanna Schrafstetter","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcad061","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n This article focuses on the journey of “the Benghazi group,” three hundred European Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism, who, for several months in 1940, were stranded in Benghazi, then part of the Italian colonial empire. They organized and attempted to sail from Italy to Palestine in an Aliyah bet voyage, but were eventually forcibly returned to Italy and interned in the Ferramonti camp in the south of the country. Even though the British liberated Ferramonti in 1943, in 1941 and 1942 many Jews had already been transferred to internment locations further north. When Germany occupied Italy in fall 1943, many members of the Benghazi group thus fell victim to the Holocaust. This article examines the possibilities and limitations for self-help and agency among Jewish refugees in Fascist Italy. It describes their experiences in the context of Fascist Italy’s antisemitic policies and the history of Aliyah bet operations, which did not treat Jews in Italy as a high priority for rescue. At the core of this article lies the story of an encounter between central European Jews and the North African Jews of Benghazi. Having spent their last remaining financial means on the journey to Palestine, the members of the Benghazi group became dependent on the extraordinary hospitality of the Libyan Jews, making Benghazi a temporary sanctuary for European Jewish refugees.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcad061","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article focuses on the journey of “the Benghazi group,” three hundred European Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism, who, for several months in 1940, were stranded in Benghazi, then part of the Italian colonial empire. They organized and attempted to sail from Italy to Palestine in an Aliyah bet voyage, but were eventually forcibly returned to Italy and interned in the Ferramonti camp in the south of the country. Even though the British liberated Ferramonti in 1943, in 1941 and 1942 many Jews had already been transferred to internment locations further north. When Germany occupied Italy in fall 1943, many members of the Benghazi group thus fell victim to the Holocaust. This article examines the possibilities and limitations for self-help and agency among Jewish refugees in Fascist Italy. It describes their experiences in the context of Fascist Italy’s antisemitic policies and the history of Aliyah bet operations, which did not treat Jews in Italy as a high priority for rescue. At the core of this article lies the story of an encounter between central European Jews and the North African Jews of Benghazi. Having spent their last remaining financial means on the journey to Palestine, the members of the Benghazi group became dependent on the extraordinary hospitality of the Libyan Jews, making Benghazi a temporary sanctuary for European Jewish refugees.
期刊介绍:
The major forum for scholarship on the Holocaust and other genocides, Holocaust and Genocide Studies is an international journal featuring research articles, interpretive essays, and book reviews in the social sciences and humanities. It is the principal publication to address the issue of how insights into the Holocaust apply to other genocides. Articles compel readers to confront many aspects of human behavior, to contemplate major moral issues, to consider the role of science and technology in human affairs, and to reconsider significant political and social factors.