Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Libyan concentration camp victims tell their story
Originaly Posted On: 2008-01-11 14:08:00

The story of the Jewish experience in the Libyan concentration camp at Giado will finally be told in a new book by Eric Salerno to be published this month.

The book, in Italian and titled Uccideteli tutti (”Kill them all”) echoes the words of Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, who ordered that all the Jews of Cyrenaica, then subject to Italian Fascist racial laws, be rounded up and interned in 1943. Hundreds died of starvation and disease - especially the young and the old. Others were deported to Italy and then delivered into the hands of the SS in Germany.

This neglected chapter of the Holocaust is told through interviews with survivors in Italy, the US and Israel. An appendix lists the names of the thousands who were interned at Giado.

Eric Salerno has been the Middle East correspondent of the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero for 20 years. He divides his time between Rome, Melbourne and Jerusalem.

Uccideteli tutti: Libia 1943: gli ebrei nel campo di concentramento fascista di Giado di Eric Salerno ( Il Saggiatore) 17 euros.