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<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Infobox person<br />
| name = Khaled Abdul-Wahab<br />
| image = Khaled Abdul Wahab van.5a51602.jpg<br />
| caption = Khaled Abdul Wahab in 1936<br />
| birth_date = {{birth date|1911|3|1|df=y}}<br />
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| death_date = {{death date and age|1997|4<br />
|26|1911|4|11|df=y}}<br />
| death_place =<br />
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}}<br />
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'''Khaled Abdul-Wahab''' (1 March 1911 &ndash; 4 September 1997) was a [[Tunisia]]n [[Muslim]] Arab man who saved several Jewish families from [[Nazi]] persecution, in Vichy-controlled Tunisia during [[the Holocaust]].<ref name="gariwo">{{cite web|title=Khaled Abdul Wahab A Tunisian Muslim Arab who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust|publisher = gariwo|url =http://www.gariwo.net/eng_new/giusti/giusto.php?cod=239&categoria=170&sopra=159&sotto=170|accessdate=2010-04-28}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Borschel-Dan|first=Amanda|date=15 April 2015|title=Why hasn't Yad Vashem honored more Arabs for saving Jews?|website=[[The Times of Israel]]|url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-hasnt-yad-vashem-honored-more-arabs-for-saving-jews/|url-status=live|access-date=2020-08-15}}</ref> He has been called the 'Tunisian [[Oskar Schindler|Schindler]]'.<ref name="Harris">Paul Harris, [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/11/arab-schindler-honour-israel 'Israel called on to honour the 'Arab Schindler'], at [[The Guardian]], 11 April 2010.</ref><br />
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==Wartime rescue of Jews==<br />
Abdul-Wahab, the son of a wealthy aristocratic family, had frequently travelled abroad during his youth, mostly to [[France]]. Before the war he had studied art and architecture in [[New York City|New York]].<ref name="Meidan">Anat Meidan ['Righteous among the Amazigh,'] at [[Ynet]], 15 October 2010.</ref> He was 31 when German troops occupied Vichy Tunisia in November 1942. [[French protectorate of Tunisia|French Tunisia]] was then home to approximately 100,000 [[Jews]]. Under the Nazis' [[anti-Semitic]] policies, they were forced to wear [[yellow badge]]s and were subject to fines and having their property confiscated. More than 5,000 [[Tunisian Jews]] were sent to forced [[labor camps]], where 46 are known to have died. Another 160 [[Tunisian Jews]] in [[Vichy France|France]] were sent to European [[death camps]] - which might have been the fate of Jews in Vichy Tunisia itself, had Nazi rule lasted longer.<br />
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Abdul-Wahab, an [[Interlocutor (politics)|interlocutor]] between the Nazis and the population of the coastal town of [[Mahdia]], heard that German officers were planning to rape a local Jewish woman, whom he realized must be Odette Boukhris, the wife of an acquaintance. He plied the German with wine until the German was drunk and drove to the oil factory where the family had taken refuge, and picked up the Boukhris family and their neighbours, the Ouzzan family,<ref name="Steinfeldt">Irena Steinfeldt, ['A truly inspiring story ,'] at [[Jerusalem Post]], 30 January 2012.</ref> 25 people and took them to his family's farm, and kept them there for 4 months, allocating a small room to each family member. Despite the contiguity of Khaled's farm to a [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross]] camp where injured German soldiers were tended, none of the farm-hands, who knew of the presence of these hidden Jews, revealed the fact. They stayed until the end of the Nazi occupation ended, and in April 1943, with the arrival of the British at Mahdia, all the families returned to their homes.<ref name="Meidan"/><ref name="weisel">{{cite news|title=Honoring All Who Saved Jews|newspaper = [[New York Times]]| date=28 December 2011 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/opinion/honoring-all-who-saved-jews.html|accessdate=2011-12-29| last1=Weisel | first1=Eva }}</ref><br />
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In December 1942, he helped save a Jewish family of nearly two dozen people. One of them was Eva Weisl, 13 years old at the time. All able-bodied men of Weisl's family were ordered into forced labour by the Germans. The family was offered protection by Khaled who ferried all the women, children and old men to his farm. The family was provided lodging by Khaled in the stables of his farm. Soon after a German unit arrived in the area. Khaled instructed the family to hide their yellow badges, stay in the courtyard and keep away from the main house. In order to keep the family hidden, he invited the German unit to his house. By the night, two drunk German soldiers wandered to the courtyard. They started banging on the door of the courtyard saying, "We know you're Jews and we're coming to get you!" The family upon hearing these threats hid all the girls. Khaled reached there and managed to convince the Germans to leave the family alone. Next day he apologised to the family for the threats by the German soldiers and promised them that such an incident would never happen again. Eva and her family passed the rest of the German occupation on his farm.<ref name="weisel"/><ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/An-Arab-Righteous-Gentile-A-daughters-story|title= An Arab "Righteous Gentile": A daughter's story|author= Faiza Abdul-Waheb|newspaper= [[The Jerusalem Post]]|date= January 28, 2012|accessdate= June 8, 2022}}</ref><br />
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=="Righteous Among the Nations" ==<br />
[[Robert Satloff]], who had been searching for records of [[Arabs]] who had saved [[Jews]] from the [[Holocaust]], was first informed of Abdul-Wahab by Odette Boukhris' daughter, Annie Boukhris, who had also been hidden by Abdul-Wahab at the age of 11; shortly after recording her testimony, she died at age 71. Satloff then went to Mahdia and confirmed the story.<ref>Amanda Borschel-Dan,[http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-hasnt-yad-vashem-honored-more-arabs-for-saving-jews/ 'Why hasn’t Yad Vashem honored more Arabs for saving Jews?,'] [[The Times of Israel]] 15 April 2015.</ref><br />
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Although nominated, Abdul-Wahab still has to be approved by the [[Yad Vashem]] commission that grants the honor. Yad Vashem has conferred the honor on 60 Muslims, including [[Turkish people|Turks]], [[Tatars]] and [[Bosnians]], with [[Mohammed Helmy]] as the only such Arab. Most of the Muslims who received the award were [[Albanians]]. Abdul-Wahab's case has already been once studied by the [[Righteous Among the Nations]] Department of Yad Vashem but it was declined on the basis that Khaled Abdul-Wahab did not risk his own life; that he had "hosted" rather than hidden Jews, and that the Germans were aware of the presence of Jews on his family's farm.<ref name="Meidan"/> Saving Jews in Tunisia was not against the law at the time and the saviors did not risk their own lives and safety which is a necessary condition in proclaiming a person Righteous Among the Nations.<ref>''Irena Steinfeldt''. [http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/pdf/abdelwahhab.pdf Paying the Ultimate Price]</ref> His daughter Faiza Abdul Wahab commented: "My father opened his home to Jews and Yad Vashem did not open their home to us."<ref name="Meidan"/> Specifically, investigations revealed, through interviews with Annie Boukris and Edmee Masliah (Ouzzan), that the Germans were fully aware of the situation, that the male Jews continued to work under German supervision, and that, during German visits, the group would put on their yellow badges in order to be counted to ensure none had escaped in the meanwhile. They also were furnished with medicine by the [[German Red Cross]] facility nearby.<ref name="Steinfeldt"/><br />
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==See also==<br />
*[[Arab and Muslim rescue efforts during the Holocaust]]<br />
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==References==<br />
<references /><br />
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==External links==<br />
*{{cite news|title=First Arab Nominated for Holocaust Honor |publisher=[[Associated Press]] |date=2007-01-30 |url=http://www.beliefnet.com/story/211/story_21108_1.html |accessdate=2007-02-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070831213921/http://www.beliefnet.com/story/211/story_21108_1.html |archivedate=August 31, 2007 }} <br />
*{{cite news<br />
|title=Yad Vashem to showcase Muslims who saved Jews from Nazis <br />
|newspaper=[[The Jerusalem Post]] <br />
|date=2007-01-30 <br />
|url=https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Yad-Vashem-to-showcase-Muslims-who-saved-Jews-from-Nazis <br />
|accessdate=2007-10-29 <br />
}}<br />
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071226131638/http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/?content=20070830 ''Voices on Antisemitism'' Interview with Faiza Abdul-Wahab] from the [http://www.ushmm.org/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]<br />
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090506103010/http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/index.php?content=20061123 ''Voices on Antisemitism'' Interview with Robert Satloff] from the [http://www.ushmm.org/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]<br />
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070204045406/http://www.theworld.org/?q=taxonomy_by_date%2F1%2F20070131 The World: Khaled Abdulwahab]<br />
{{wikiquote}}<br />
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==Further reading==<br />
{{commons category|Khaled Abdul Wahab}}<br />
*''Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands'', Robert Satloff<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abdelwahhab, Khaled}}<br />
[[Category:1911 births]]<br />
[[Category:1997 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:Tunisian Muslims]]<br />
[[Category:The Holocaust in Tunisia]]<br />
[[Category:People who rescued Jews during the Holocaust]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Tunisian people]]</div>73.111.195.166