Jews of the Sephardic Diaspora consist mainly of Jews from the territories of the ex-Ottoman Empire as well as from North Africa.

As a result of the Alliance Israélite Universelle network of schools, Ottoman Jews as well as the North African spoke French. So it was not surprising that after the disruption of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW I followed by the soon therafter economic breakdown, many Jews from these territories made their way to France as a place to rebuild their lives.

Three of the North Africa countries (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) became French colonies or protectorates between 1830 and 1912 and, because Jews from these countries were already familiar with the French language and culture, some of them moved to live in France.

That is how many Sephardic Jews were found to be in France at the declaration of WW II. Anti-Semitic laws were promulgated in October 1940 and in May 1942 the "Final Solution" began to be implemented with the first deportation convoy leaving the soil of France towards the death camps in the East.

Among the 80,000 deported Jews from France, there were Jews born in Algeria, Bulgaria, Greece, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey as well as some Jews from Egypt and from other Middle East countries.

Please note that only persons born in one of these above mentioned countries have been listed here while wives, husbands and children born in other foreign countries or in France, were not indexed in these databases.

Source: Klarsfeld, Serge. Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France. Paris, 1978.