The Farhud
The Farhud : A Pogrom in Iraq, orchestrated from Berlin
This building was used by the German Arab Broadcasting Authority during the Nazi regime (إذاعة برلين العربية).
At that time large parts of the Arab world were under British control or influence and the areas under French control were not always in obedience to the Vichy government (the French puppet regime during the German occupation), therefore many Arabs saw the Nazi side as an alley (“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”). The Nazi Regime took advantage of this and meddled in many countries in the Near East region and especially in Egypt, the British Mandate in Palestine/Land of Israel and in Iraq.
Some Arab leaders (led by the “Grand Mufti” – Haj Amin al-Husseini) even visited Berlin and met with the heads of the Nazi regime. During those visits, it was decided to establish an Arab Broadcasting Authority on behalf of the German government. A prominent figure in the radio was the Iraqi Younis Bahri , who famously opened his programmes with “Here is Berlin, Hail to the Arabs” هنا برلين حيَّ العرب . Bahri worked in the radio, among others, with Fawzi al-Qutb, who was later responsible for some of the most murderous attacks against Jews in Jerusalem – including the Ben Yuhuda Street Bombing and the ambush on the Hadassah Medical Supplies Convoy.
But this authority not only incited hatred and encouraged sabotage and rebellion against the British authorities but also actively worked to instill Nazi ideology and at the forefront the struggle against the Jews. In this context, one of the largest pogroms ever committed in the Muslim world was organized and instigated from Berlin – the Farhud الفرهود (translation means “brutal intimidation of the ruled”).
On the Festival of Shavuot 1941 (June 1-2, 1941), riots broke out in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, against the Jews.
Although the numbers are not clear, it is documented that at least 179 Jews were killed, 2118 were injured, and 242 children lost their parents. In addition, property was looted (it is estimated that the property of about 50,000 Jews was looted). Two days later, the British army intervened and hundreds more non-Jews were killed during the dispersal of the riots.
It should be noted that the Israeli courts rejected the victims’ requests to be recognized as victims of the Nazis (as of 2021).
The original building no longer exists. Today there is a memorial sign at the entrance to the Jewish school that was there before the Nazis closed the Jewish schools, the Theodor Herzl School, about which we wrote a little in our article about Zionist History in Berlin.