Shlomo Haion

RelatioNet  SH HA 39 DE LY

Interviewer:Ben Shalom and Amit Keyvan


Email:  benboss@walla.com, amitkey@gmail.com


Survivor:


Family Name:  Haion
First Name:  Shlomo
Father Name:  Zion
Mother Name:   Siya
Birth Date:  24/2/1939
Town In Holocaust:  Derna 
Country In Holocaust:  Lybia
Profession (Main) In Holocaust:  Grocery Merchant
Address Today: Living in Rothshield 69,Kfar Saba

Shlomo's  story

  

Shlomo Haion, was born in 1939  Lybia, in a town called Darna. He studied bible in a Jewish school. He had 8 brothers and sisters. His father Zion had a small store which sold perfumes, razors and more.

In 1943 the Italians took the whole family to a work camp called Zaado. The Italians didn’t hate the Jews so they didn’t hurt them as the Nazis did. They slept in a big hall and it was very cold at nights and because there was a lot of garbage and there were also diseases like Typhus. There was hunger and many people died there. One of his memories was that someone stole some pasta for his mom,  she cooked it and right after that an Italian officer threw all of it on her and she burnt her legs. Shlomo was 6 years old when it happened. In the camp there were no studies, no newspapers, books, nothing, and nothing to play with. Everyone was trying to survive. They were all thinking about food all the time, and how to bribe people for some food. Those who had a lot of money escaped to Italy.

A strong memory Shlomo has is of the food and the taste of what they ate in the camp. The Italians who controlled the camp did not have bread to give the Jews so they brought them a kind of dry bread which tasted like MATZA.

Living in the camp was not easy for Shlomo and his family and they always had the feeling that they would not survive. After a while his father Tzion was taken to work by the Italians and the rest of his family were together for most of the time. When his mother got typhus they thought she had died and took her to the mortuary. Suddenly after a short time an Italian doctor randomly checked her and he noticed that she was still alive.

At the beginning of 1945 the British army came and released them from the Italian army. He remembers that it was a great feeling for all of them when finally they were free to go. They kept living there until 1949 when an Israeli agent came to Libya in order to help Jews come to Israel. They left Libya with no money or property, no ID cards or any documents. From Tripoli they took a ship to the Israeli coast and then arrived at Pardesia.  He remembers when he was on the ship, he walked up the stairs and because the stairs were so huge he almost fell to his death. At the last second some stranger held him by his shirt and saved him. 

When they arrived they were given clothes and some food. They lived in refugee camps in Neve-Ganim. In Libya he had studied the bible and it was very strange to him, when here he also studied regular subjects. He can barely remember himself as a happy child in those days. The whole family worked hard to earn a little bit money and he did not have a lot of games to play with his new friends.

When he grew up in Israel, he felt that he needed to contribute something to the country so he was recruited into IDF and became a combat soldier in GIVATI. Shlomo fought many wars such as SHESHET HAYAMIM and YOM KIPUR. It was important for him to protect his country. After he left the army, he helped his family with the farm, the family had fruits, vegetables and more. The economic state was hard, but his will to help his family was stronger.

Survivor town

Background

Libya was colonized by Italy from 1911 until the end of World War 2. During the 30s' there were 26,000 Jews in the whole of Libya, with most in the city Tripoli. Until 1931 the Jewish community live peacefully with the Libyan citizens, mainly because of  business relationships.

The period of WWII

In June 1940 when Italy joined the war on the side of Germany, Jews with British or French citizenship living in the country were arrested. They were sent to the Jado concentration camp, about 150 kilometers from Tripoli. The conditions were terrible ,because of that a lot of Jews got sick and starved to death.

British occupation

In December 1940 the British began an assault on the Italian forces, and after about two months they succeeded in capturing the area of Cyrenaica, whose capital is Benghazi. Units of Jewish soldiers from Israel reached the area together with the British Armed forces, and fought together against the Italians. As a result of the British victory, incitement against the Jews living in other parts of the country increased. At the same time, the Germans sent forces to aid the Italians. In the months of April to May 1941 the British were forced to retreat from the Cyrenaica area and returned to Egypt.

The fate of the Jews

When the Italians recaptured the area of Cyrenaica, they punished them. In the spring of 1942 the British army captured the area again, but just for few months. When the area was recaptured by the Italians, Mussolini issued an order to “thin out the Jewish population” of Cyrenaica. The meaning of the order was the deportation of the Jews. The Jews were divided to groups by their nationality:

1.     1,600 Jews with French citizenship were deported to concentration camps in southern Tunisia and Algeria.

2.     The 300 Jews of British nationality were deported to concentration camps in Italy. Later they were sent to Bergen-Belsen.

3.     Lybian Jews were sent to concentration camps in Tripolitania- largest and main camp which was the camp at Jado.

4.     Finally in 1944 the British army defeated the Italians once and for all, and the Jews were free to go.

Conclusion

When Libya was finally free of Italian occupation,the Jewish community suffered from a lack  of basic needs like food,  water, clothes and medicines. More than that, the Arabs managed to attack them many times in Pogrom. After WW2, till 1958 the Jewish community suffered a lot because of Israel's wars. In 1958 the government of Libya decided that in order to help them ,they must send them away to Israel.