Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa in the Vichy Labor Camps

Anthropologist and historian Boum (The Holocaust and North Africa) and Algerian cartoonist Berber illuminate a lesser-known atrocity of the Holocaust: the Vichy labor camps in North Africa. As Nazism takes over Germany, a fictional composite figure, Jewish Berliner journalist Hans Frank, remarks on how quickly fascism rises: “It’s not the past or future that makes me nervous... it’s the present.” Hans flees Germany for Paris, where he learns about the Algerian fight for freedom; goes to Spain, where civil war has broken out; and eventually joins the French Foreign Legion in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria. But the signing of the 1940 Franco-German Armistice led to the Foreign Legion being disbanded, and Vichy declared “foreign Jews and Spanish Republicans ‘undesirables’ and a burden on the French economy.” Hans is interned in labor camps, where he endures terrible conditions. Berber’s black-and-white artwork has a throwback noir feel, thick with period details, though flow is occasionally hampered by stiffly posed figures and dominating text boxes. This in-depth graphic history brings a shameful period to broader awareness. (Jan.)