Algeria Second World War Database

BACKGROUND

This is a database that combines a variety of lists which reflect the life of Jewish Algeria during the Second World War. Algeria was never occupied by the Germans but was instead governed by the Vichy French government. Algerian Jewry was thus spared the greater horrors of the Holocaust yet despite that they suffered many privations and antisemitic decrees during that time. This is an ongoing project which will see many more records added over time. The contents of the database include the following:

• List of Jews from Constantine who did not regain French nationality following the decision of the Vichy government of May 19, 1942: This was a result of the Riom trial, which was a show trial put on by the Vichy government to prove that the Third Republic was to blame (instead of the Nazis) for France’s military defeat in 1940. They wanted to shift the blame to anyone supporting the Allied War effort and deprive these individuals of French citizenship. The list is in the Archives de la Défense Nationale, Folder Number 93 3G 7-9_7879,7855,7881.

• Ville de Bone, Liste des Juifs attributaires de cartes d'alimentation 29.08.1942: This is a list of Jewish recipients of food ration coupons during World War Two in the city of what was Bône, today called Annaba. This was a 94 page list that literally could be a census of the entire Jewish population of the city.

DATABASE

This database includes 3408 Jews from Algeria during World War Two.

The fields in the database are:

• Surname
• Given Name
• Other Surnames
• Date of birth
• Age
• Location
• Comments
• Name of Source List
• Source

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The information contained in this database was transcribed by Eric Feinstein and Sandy Bennett. The information that these lists exists was indexed as part of the effort of The Documentation Center of North African Jews during World War II which is supported by the Claims Conference.

November 2025