Culture  /  Film Review

The Real Refugees of Casablanca

When it came to gathering refugees, the waiting room of the US consulate was probably the closest thing to Rick’s Café Américain.
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Most the refugees who found themselves in Casablanca in the summer of 1940, and the months that followed, were Jews. They arrived in a city with a flourishing Jewish community and members of that community provided the refugees with assistance, in particular, Hélène Cazes-Bénatar. A stout woman of 42 years, Bénatar became the first female lawyer in French Morocco. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, she volunteered with the French Red Cross and trained as a nurse, but France’s quick collapse ended any chance of tending wounded soldiers. Bénatar, who had no love for Vichy, would find a different way to serve. Upon seeing the humanitarian crisis engulfing the port with the arrival of the refugees, she founded a refugee assistance committee.

Bénatar’s committee helped refugees leave the dormitory-like quarters of Aïn Chok and find housing the city, whether a rented room or lodging with a Jewish family. The committee also assisted with completing the paperwork for visa applications, signing up with aid agencies, and registering with Protectorate authorities. For those who lacked funds, modest financial assistance was available. In September 1940, Bénatar’s committee had 825 refugees on its rolls. The number fluctuated as refugees departed and new ones arrived.

“Everybody comes to Rick’s,” says Captain Renault of the nightclub run by Humphrey Bogart’s character. The swanky café serves as a meeting place for the displaced and dispossessed.

But Rick’s Café Américain didn’t exist in historical Casablanca. Indeed, Americans in Casablanca would have been a rare sight in the city of 350,000. Before the war started, there were just over a hundred Americans in all of French Morocco, a motley collection of missionaries, businessmen, and diplomats.

When it came to gathering refugees together, the waiting room of the U.S. consulate was probably the closest thing to Rick’s. Each morning the refugees would line up outside, waiting for their turn to apply for a visa or inquire about the status of their application. Sometimes the line was two hundred deep.