Educational Media Reviews Online

Mention the word “Holocaust” to a student or an adult and, while the level of recognition may vary, recognition will occur. People will know that it had something to do with Nazis and Jews in Europe during World War II, and most will recognize the phrase “concentration camp.” It is a part of our consciousness as a world society. A Matter of Time: The Jews of North Africa in World War II seeks to take that consciousness and understanding one step further, beyond the European situation, and remind the world that the Nazi policies concerning Jews extended beyond the commonly understood bounds and into the Jewish communities of Northern Africa.

This film argues that the historical disconnect between the fate of separate Jewish populations is largely due to the difference in direct German participation. Crimes against North African Jews were perpetrated by the colonial powers – Italy in Libya, and France in Morocco and Algeria – through German influence rather than direct action in many cases. In the case of Libya, the documentary participants discuss the removal of Jews to internment camps and the factors involved in sending a number to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Algerian and Moroccan Jews, affected by anti-Semitic laws passed by the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain, were removed largely from urban population centers and taken to work camps. The historians and individuals interviewed for the footage make the argument that, while this was not the physical extermination of the European Jews, if the war had gone differently it would only have been a "matter of time" before North African Jews shared that fate. As it is, the film suggests that the disruption of the North African Jewish communities, which had previously resisted the extent of assimilation into European culture that their European counterparts accepted, caused a loss of identity, and that the subsequent move to Israel ended their culture.

The film, a combination of interview footage with historians and survivors of the anti-Semitic policies in Northern Africa, archival footage, and map graphics, is recommended for discussion of a topic rarely dealt with, even in considerations of the Northern Africa theatre of World War II. The presentation is one-sided, but is frank and provides insight into the world view of North African Jews during and after the war. Unfortunately, its narrowness of subject and reliance upon the viewer’s previous knowledge in order to understand the significance of its comparison limits its usefulness to those audiences familiar with not only the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime, but also with the North African theatre of war. Arguments and assertions made, such as differences in culture and levels of assimilation between European and North African Jews, lack detail and require previous knowledge of the cultures. That being said, the film is a significant addition for college and graduate programs studying the impacts of World War II upon religious groups. As an accessibility note, the film is in Hebrew, with English subtitles which, at times, move far too quickly to be read completely.