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JewishHistoryעברית

Deportation of the Jews of Cyrenaica, 1942

Date
7 February 1942 – October 1942Hebrew date: 20th of Sh’vat, 5702
Location
Cyrenaica (removal to Giado and other sites)Libya
Then part of
Kingdom of Italy
Perpetrators
  • Italian government under Benito Mussolini (State)
Killed (estimate)
562 – 900[3]Jews who died at the Giado camp, mostly of typhus. JIMENA states that 562 died. An interviewee quoted by Roumani-Denn recalled 700 to 900 deaths from typhus. Roumani-Denn's own statement is that more than one in five of those in the camp died. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gives no death count.
Country

0.96% – 1.9% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Italy (c. 1938)[42]

Worldwide

0.0034% – 0.0055% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Expelled (estimate)
2,600[1]2,600 deported, most to Giado (source 1). Source 2 describes about 2,600 of Libyan nationality and about 50 Italian Jews sent to Giado, plus about 400 to mountain villages. Those groups are not added into a second total.
Country

4.5% – 5.4% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Italy (c. 1938)[42]

Worldwide

0.016% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Expulsion, Persecution
Confidence
DisputedThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states that 2,600 Jews were deported and that most went to Giado, with others sent to Buqbuq and Sidi Azaz, and that some Libyan Jews were deported to internment camps in Tunisia. Roumani-Denn states that about 2,600 Jews of Libyan nationality and about fifty Italian Jews were sent to Giado, and that another four hundred went to villages in the mountains of Tripolitania. JIMENA states that 562 died at Giado. Roumani-Denn states that more than one in five died, mostly of typhus, and quotes an interviewee who recalled 700 to 900 deaths from typhus. The museum places Giado 150 miles south of Tripoli; Roumani-Denn places it 200 kilometers southwest of Tripoli.

Summary

On 7 February 1942 Benito Mussolini ordered the Jews of Cyrenaica removed from the province, and from May through late October the Italian authorities sent them out by truck. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states that 2,600 were deported, most of them to the Giado (Jadu) camp, a former military post in Tripolitania, with others sent to the camps at Buqbuq and Sidi Azaz and some to internment camps in Tunisia. Vivienne Roumani-Denn states that about 2,600 Jews of Libyan nationality and about fifty Italian Jews were sent to Giado, that another four hundred were sent to villages in the mountains of Tripolitania, and that Jews holding French or Tunisian nationality were transported to Tunisia. Roumani-Denn writes that more than one in five of the people at Giado died, mostly of typhus, and a JIMENA timeline states that 562 died there; the internees were later returned to Cyrenaica after British forces took Tripoli in January 1943, and both Roumani-Denn and JIMENA record that Jews holding British passports were sent to internment camps in Italy, some of whom Roumani-Denn states were later taken to Bergen-Belsen after the German occupation of northern Italy.

Sources

  1. Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Aomar Boum, Labor and Internment Camps in North Africa. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia (2019)
  2. Vivienne Roumani-Denn, The Jews of Cyrenaica During World War II, in Their Own Words. Sephardic Horizons
  3. Libya: timeline. JIMENA

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • Kingdom of Italy: 47,825 – 58,412[42]c. 1938USHMM Losses: 58,412 in 1938. USHMM Italy article: about 50,000 in 1933. AJYB Table X: 47,825 (1931 census). Year chosen near the 1938 racial laws.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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