Ferramonti, not Palestine: The Failed Aliyah bet of the “Benghazi Group,” 1939–1943

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.