Site of Amnesia: The Lost Historical Consciousness of Mizrahi Jewry. Representation of the Experience of the Jews of North Africa and the Middle East During World War II in Israeli, European and Middle Eastern Film and Television by Yvonne Kozlovsky Golan (review)

Michael Curtiz (1886–1962) could not imagine that a film he directed quickly at a small studio would become one of the most popular films in the history of Hollywood. He began to direct the film five months before its premiere on November 26, 1942. The timing of the premiere was perfect, two weeks after the landing of the American forces on the North African coast in Operation Torch. The film, titled Casablanca, had a considerable impact on American public opinion during the war. The movie is essentially an outstanding love story, but it is also the story of World War II from the point at which the United States began its participation in the war. The film has hidden messages related to war. The suffering of the Jews under the Vichy Regime in North Africa was not one of those hidden messages, however, nor was the fate of the Jews in Europe during those horrible times. The fate of the Jews was not one of the concerns of Operation Torch either.

There is no doubt that the history of North African Jewry, and also Middle East Jewry, during World War II has become more familiar and publicly acknowledged in Israeli society and academic research today than in the past. This subject has at least three inter-connected dimensions. The first one is the historical dimension based on the knowledge that we have and the new knowledge that we are gaining thanks to the opening of archives and new possibilities for research. The second dimension is the shaping of the personal and collective memory of the Jews from those countries. The third dimension is the acceptance of the subject in Israeli society and its acceptance in the countries of North Africa as well as in France and Italy.

Yvonne Kozlovsky Golan's book Site of Amnesia has three main aspects: chronology, location, and the visual representations (cinema and television) by which she illuminates the war. The chronology of World War II is examined in two different and parallel axes, the axis of the historical events of the war and the axis of the development of the memory of the war in visual representation. While the chronological definition of the war period is clear, the location of North Africa and the Middle East is complicated because of different historical events and the impact and influence of the war on these two different parts of the Muslim world. Do the historical facts actually justify wrapping both areas in the chronological framework of the war? According to what can be deduced from the presentation of the films in the book, as will be explained below, the films of the Jewish communities in these two areas are quite different from each other.

Although I do have comments on some descriptions of the historical events of World War II (mainly in North Africa) in this book, I shall not discuss them as this is not the focus of the book. The second axis is more important and more innovative in relation to the subject matter.

The book has 15 chapters that can be divided into general and methodological chapters (chapters one to six), films and documentary television programs regarding North African Jewry (chapters 10 and 13), and films and documentary television regarding Middle East Jewry and mainly Iraqi Jewry (chapters 11 and 12).

Chapter four demonstrates the three aforementioned aspects of the topic: the war years are the chronology, the space is mainly North Africa, and the means are visual expressions. The chapter does a good job describing the different points of view of all the forces involved...