MIRAH LANGER
“Data obtained from the colonial archives and from the testimony of the victims reveal that in Senegal, some Jews were taken by the colonial administration in one internment camp at Sébikhotane for forced labour,” explained Deme, a professor at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal. He was speaking at a talk held at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre in Forest Town last week.
The site of the camp has been identified, although the functions of each building located there have not been clearly established. Testimonies from a prison guard and a Polish prisoner at the time have also been recorded.
Deme’s presentation, about his pioneering work on West Africa and the Holocaust, was part of a programme held in honour of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Deme said that during World War II, some Jews from Senegal were also forcibly sent to work at the Office du Niger in Mali – a location, which Deme suggested, could itself be considered a transit camp.
Furthermore, at that time, the Jewish community in Senegal – many of whom, after fleeing the inquisition, had settled in the West African country in the 17th and 18th centuries – was subject to anti-Semitic legislation implemented in 1940 and 1941.
“Dakar was, at that time, the capital of Vichy France in West Africa. After the defeat of France, the Vichy regime established anti-Jewish laws.”
The laws forced all Jews in Senegal to register and apply for various licences, including for housing, business, logging, forestry and mining.
Many Jews lost their jobs and others were refused entry into the country.
The files recording the forced registrations from this time show how varied the origins of the Senegalese Jewish community had, by then, become.
Besides native-born Jews, those hailing from France, Morocco, Tunisia, England, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Holland, Switzerland and Lebanon were noted.
Anti-Semitism was so extreme in Senegal during the war years that many Jews were forced into exile in Liberia, from where they hoped to make their way to the US.
Deme also revealed data that records the names and fates of Jews, born in Senegal, as well as Senegalese soldiers who were later killed in various European concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald.
Another compelling connection that Deme revealed was that Léopold Sédar Senghor, later to become the first president of Senegal, was a prisoner of war during the Nazi regime.
Senghor had been part of France’s colonial army, known as “les tirailleurs Sénégalais”, who were sent to occupy the Rhineland after World War I. Following the outbreak of World War II, many of them were imprisoned.
Even after Senghor’s release in 1942, he continued to organise resistance against the Nazis.
“Senghor’s heroic resistance against Nazi ideology and practice explains Israel’s decision to be among the first countries to recognise the independence of Senegal in 1960,” explained Deme.
Reflecting on the reality that anti-Semitism continued to be evident across society today, Deme nevertheless took an optimistic angle. “Where you see anti-Semitism, you also see those fighting anti-Semitism,” he suggested.
