Sephardic and Oriental oral testimonies: their importance for Holocaust commemoration and memory

The neglect of the experience of Sephardic and oriental Jews in Holocaust studies is to some extent relieved by oral histories conducted with relevant survivors from the Balkans, North Africa and Iraq. Since there is little or no documentation, these oral histories must suffice. They disclose, inter alia, the ill-treatment meted out to Eastern Mediterranean Jews in North African Italian detention centres. The general failure to include testimonies of Sepahrdic/Oriental Holocaust survivors in museums and academe is noted and deplored.