The Silent Holocaust in North Africa • The Hidden Diary from the Jadu Concentration Camp

In the past three years, a rare literary miracle has occurred: a tattered and faded diary written in secret 80 years ago, in a barbed-wire-fenced hell on Libyan soil – became a bestseller in the free State of Israel, under the title "The Hidden Diary from the Jadoo Concentration Camp," by author Shlomo Abramowitz.

"The Hidden Diary" by Shlomo Abramowitz was published by Yedioth Sfarim (editor: Dovi Eichnold) and created significant changes in discourse and consciousness regarding the Holocaust, when it revealed to the public the fact that the Holocaust also occurred in North Africa and Libya in particular, thereby breaking the false myth under the title "The Holocaust of European Jews." As stated, the book won the Prime Minister's Prize 1971, was approved for inclusion in high school curricula, received rave reviews in Israeli newspapers, was adapted into a documentary film, and forms the basis for a training program at the Ghetto Fighters' House Museum. In addition, the book is currently being translated into eight languages.

The trajectory of "The Hidden Diary from the Jado Concentration Camp" received another dramatic jump this week, with the screening of the film "Jado - Holocaust in the Desert", which, as mentioned, is based on the hidden diary. The film describes the path to deciphering the text in it and presents testimonies from survivors of the camp.

Shlomo Abramowitz: "The Prime Minister's Award, the adaptation of the documentary film and the translation of the book into various languages ​​are professional peaks and a source of immense pride and excitement. Regarding the hidden diary, I think first of all about correcting the historical injustice, which silenced the Holocaust of the Jews of North Africa and in particular that of the Jews of Libya."

"Upon receiving the Prime Minister's Award and in the moments when I am engaged in translating the book into various languages ​​- I think of Yosef Dedosh, a young man I never knew, but one whose character and heroism I connected with and who became my source of inspiration in writing the book. This is a flesh-and-blood hero, who was one of the prisoners of the Jadoo concentration camp in the heart of the Libyan desert and who did everything to ensure that the horrors of Jadoo would never be forgotten."

"When writing a book about the Holocaust period, there is no real way to understand what the hero of the story looks like. In the vast majority of cases, there are no photographs of Holocaust victims and it is difficult to impossible to see their faces as they looked in real time, in the midst of the events. Alternatively, the writer is presented with photographs of a current Holocaust survivor, that is, an elderly, weak, wrinkled person.

Dedoush, the hero of my book, was one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Benghazi. He refused to accept the 'protection' that his Italian employer tried to arrange for him, when he offered to remove him and his new wife, Bruria, from the list of those deported to the Jadoo camp. Dedoush looked straight at him and said: "Where my brothers go - I will go too." Later, in the realms of hell, Dedoush again proved his courage, writing a detailed diary, night after night, in pencil, on blotting paper, while violating the orders of the Nazi guards and while taking an enormous personal risk, to the point of the death penalty."

"For over seven decades, the hidden diary hid in piles of paperwork, documents and photographs. Yosef's son, Shimon Doron, is my partner in the 'birth' of this book. He approached me and suggested that I take on the challenge of deciphering it."

"I agreed and didn't know what I was agreeing to. It took me four years to decipher the manuscript, which was bound in Italian, parts of which had been absorbed into the pages, faded, or disappeared under grease stains and mold. It took even longer for Dr. Jacob Lats to translate the Italian."

The only diary written in the Jado camp, along with historical research, provides a rare opportunity to peek into the routine of Jado hell and into events that were documented in real time, starting with the expulsion of the Jews from their homes in Benghazi, continuing with their transport to the Jado concentration camp, and throughout the entire period of detention in the camp.

Yosef Dedosh's descriptions reveal images of horror, hunger, disease and death, but on the other hand, they emphasize the uprightness of the Jewish stature and the determined stand of the Jado detainees in the face of the abuse, humiliation and danger of death that became their daily routine.

In between, the crossroads of life and death fates that Yosef Dedosh faced was revealed, when he refused the opportunity to leave the dispatch lists to Jado - he looked directly at the 'protection' offeror and refused his offer.

At the end of the opening chapter, called "Death in the Desert," the terrible tragedy experienced by Dedus is portrayed after Ada, the two-month-old daughter of Yosef and Baruria Dedus, fell ill with typhus and died after the camp doctor gave her an injection suspected of being poison.

This is how it is described in the chapter:
'Yosef dug and his fingers drew blood. A few meters from him stood the two Italians, chatting among themselves, smoking leisurely, occasionally casting a searching glance at the actions of the grieving father. He dug the hole with their backs to them, and only then gave vent to the searing pain that pierced his heart. Many tears fell from his eyes, wetting the sandy ground and the hole that was getting deeper.

"I dug, prayed and cried, but mostly I asked forgiveness from my dead daughter. Did I do everything I could to save her? I asked myself over and over again. When the pit seemed deep and wide enough, I placed little Ada, wrapped in torn sheets, in it, covered her with sand with firm movements and muttered the few funeral prayers I remembered by heart."

The toddler Ada was buried in the Libyan desert with only her father by her side, with two heartless Italians watching her burial indifferently from the sidelines, and with her bereaved mother also fighting for her life in Pavilion E – the death pavilion of the Jadoo camp.

Then the road back from the cemetery to the concentration camp began. Only three or four kilometers, which now seemed like hell and an endless path. A path of horror – from the silent death of the cemetery to the death that awaited in the Jado huts.

Now, with his hands empty and his heart about to explode inside him, Yosef allowed his tears to flow uncontrollably. He grounded himself in the sand and tormented himself with the question that grew sharper in his mind with each step toward the camp. Was he guilty of Ada's death? Had he himself, by his own decisions, cast Bruria and the infant Ada into this terrible fate?

And while he was wallowing in the desert dust, which heavily covers every man and animal, he remembered, as if it were a living spectacle, the heated argument he had had with Agino Falla, for whom he worked as an accountant, who had sought to do good to Joseph and his family and not include his name on the list of those destined for deportation to El Jadoo. The boss volunteered to enlist all the protections in the world, but Joseph refused. His lot would be with his exiled brothers, and whatever their lot would be – would also be his fate, he declared firmly.

And as he recalled the proposal and the response he gave, the question arose in his heart and soul, mercilessly: Did he, in his decisive response, pronounce the sentence on his daughter Ada? Was it he himself who dismissed her, with his own words, from the land of the living?