“The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust”
by Karen Gray Ruell, illustrations by Deborah Durland DeSaix.
Holiday House, New York, 2009, 32 pages, Grades 4-6.
If one is to merely read American newspapers or watch television, it would be hard not to conclude that Muslims are violent and fanatical. Clearly, groups like ISIS in Iraq and Syria create this image due to their brutality. But the voice of “normal” Muslims is rarely heard. These leaders and citizens try to live their lives like everyone else.
Like everyone else, these Muslims are capable of heroic virtue and sacrifice. This was never more evident than during the Nazi Holocaust. When the Nazi dragnet of terror fell upon the victims in France, Jews fled to private homes, churches, convents and The Grand Mosque of Paris. Karen Gray Ruell tells this remarkable and mostly unknown story in her moving book “The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust.”
The Grand Mosque was built in 1926 on land given to the Muslims by the French government in thanksgiving for the 500,000 Muslim soldiers that had fought on the Allied side during World War I. Built with the lovely, intricate designs found in mosques built in North Africa, the Grand Mosque was an oasis of beauty, peace, prayer and communal gathering in the heart of Paris. The rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, ran the daily operations of the mosque. A cultured, sophisticated diplomat, Benghabrit moved easily in Arabic and French societies.
After the fall of France in 1940, he watched with growing dismay as the Nazis passed their draconian race laws targeting Jews, Gypsies and others. Soon frightened Jews began to arrive furtively at night seeking help. Benghabrit arranged safety for these desperate souls by producing Moroccan birth certificates, finding hiding places in the Grand Mosque and charitable homes and smuggling the Jews out of Paris to safety. His actions in protecting the Jews were very similar to the ones taken by Pope Pius XII in saving the victims of the Holocaust.
But World War II produced many additional targets for the Third Reich. As the war carried on, many downed Allied pilots and crews found themselves looking for hiding places from the Nazi hunters. Five times a day when the muezzin (the man announcing the times of prayer) called the people to prayer, an unusual combination of people hurried to the Grand Mosque.
Who were these people? Since it was widely known that those hiding Jews and other “enemies” of the state could be sent to concentration camps, why did Si Kaddour Benghabrit continue to act with such compassion and courage? How did the labyrinth of ancient tunnels under the city of Paris prove to be invaluable? And finally, how can saving one life help you save humanity?
To find out the answers to these questions, go to the library and check out out this fine book, “The Grand Mosque of Paris” by Karen Ruell.
The Muslim rescue of Jews and other victims of the Nazis is virtually unknown by many people. It is well for us to remember the courageous charity of the Parisian Muslims in the face of unrelenting evil of the Holocaust.
Though a picture book, the text is quite extensive and is more appropriate for somewhat older students. But I hope you get a chance to read this book with the middle-grade children in your family. It is very insightful.
