#socialjustice

#refuge

Algerian Imam Kaddour Bengharabit vs the Nazis

The emblematic scene of the Nazi officials questioning the Algerian Imam of Andalusian ancestry Kaddour Bengharabit (1868 - 1954), the religious leader of the Grand Mosque of Paris who gave refuge to hundreds of Jews in the temple by issuing them certificates that they were Muslims, so that they could escape the concentration camps towards North Africa. After the end of World War II, Bengharabit was awarded France's National Order of the Legion of Honor, and his story was portrayed in the film Les hommes libres in 2011, which shows the Muslim imam's effort to save Jewish families during the Holocaust.