I explained the context of my “Jew hunt” in Mauritius in my piece relating to the previous day – click here or below.
Unfortunately, my notes from the interview I conducted on 10 August and my copy of the piece I published in the BBYO National magazine about it seem to be lost for all time, as a result of my mum throwing out rather a lot of my juvenilia without asking my permission. I am still cross about it.
However, as the strangest quirk of fortune would have it, my friend John Random, on seeing my “Jew Hunt In Port Louis” piece, was reminded of a book he once saw at a Mauritian community fair, The Mauritian Shekel. I explain the “aha” moments in this piece, from August 2019.
Now that I have read that book and been able to do some further digging on-line, I am in a position to recreate to some extent the extraordinary interview I had with Isia (aka Isaac) Birger in Port Louis on 10 August 1979.
I recall going to a sizeable office building and being shown into a large office within. In those days, I was unaccustomed to “big businessmen” and the super-sized rooms, desks and chairs that affirmed their status as such.
Mr Birger was very welcoming and interested in my mission, once I explained that I was a newly-appointed editor of a Jewish youth magazine keen to find an interesting angle on my travels.
He then told me the extraordinary story that was subsequently (decades later, at the very end of the 20th century) written up in the book The Mauritian Shekel.
In short, Mr Birger was, at the start of the second world war, probably the only Jew in Mauritius. In 1940, many Jews were trying to flee Nazi-occupied Europe. One group of 1600 refugees, who managed to escape by boat to Mandatory Palestine, were, uniquely, deported from there as illegal immigrants and taken to Mauritius for detention throughout the war. Beau Bassin prison was converted into a refugee camp/detention centre. This unique Jewish community resided there for the rest of the war, after which most went to Mandatory Palestine and some returned to Europe.
Mr Birger, in his capacity as the only known Jewish resident on Mauritius at that time, acted as an intermediary for this involuntary community. He told me several of the fascinating stories covered in the book.
There is also a reference to Isia Berger in another book, “The Travelling Rabbi” – click here.
It transpires that, even more latterly than the 1999/2000 book, in 2007, a South African film maker, Kevin Harris (no relation), made a film about the story, see below:
Meanwhile, back in 1979, this story was an absolute coup for me. It made a most unusual piece in the BBYO national magazine and the story also became a centrepiece of a programme I took to many groups around the country in my capacity as a visiting speaker from the National Executive.
I wish I still had my original notes and I’d love to uncover a copy of the article I wrote up at the time – someone might still have a copy of that magazine gathering dust in their attic, so the article might yet emerge.
Still, the process of re-finding the story and pulling the evidence together from limited sources has been a fascinating and stimulating one.