Rosita Magiar was born in Tripoli in 1950 to parents who were born in Libya, but had roots that were deeply intertwined with Europe. Her mother, Elisa Mimun, was descended from a family with Russian origins on her father’s side and Franco-Belgian roots on her mother’s side, whose surname was Tajar. The history of the paternal branch of Rosita’s family is linked to the Sephardic diaspora. Her grandfather, Salomone Magiar, was born in Bulgaria but moved with his family to Istanbul as a child and eventually settled in Libya. Despite these movements, the Magiar family remained firmly connected to its Sephardic origins, identifying as Spanish and continuing to speak Ladino. Elisa, who married Davide Magiar at only twenty years of age, fully immersed herself in her husband’s culture, adopting his traditions and language. Rosita’s childhood was spent in a lively and affectionate family environment, filled with fond memories of her parents, her sisters Betty and Alice, her brother Victor, and her paternal uncle Enrico. The home is remembered as a place of joy and unity.
Rosita was born in a Libya on the brink of independence, after years of Italian domination and the scars left by World War II. With the implementation of the racial laws, Rosita’s father was forced to obtain false documents to continue working, managing transport between Libya and Tunisia. Other family members were subjected to forced labor, and Rosita’s paternal grandmother was denied medical care in the hospital. Additionally, some relatives in Europe had been deported without ever returning home.
Fascism was not easy in Libya, I believe many suffered visibly
Transcript
Rosita Magiar:
My family suffered during the fascist rule, they were sent to labor camps. My father managed to work by using fake documents; he worked for the Fiat company and had false documents. He dealt with transport between Libya and Tunisia and was the only one of his brothers who worked in this way, while the others were sent to labor camps and could not work. When my grandmother fell ill during the fascist rule, she was not even allowed to go to hospital.
Interviewer:
In what years?
Rosita Magiar:
I don’t know the exact year my grandmother died, I’m sorry, I can’t remember, but my father came back from Tunisia because of it. My grandmother fell ill with nephritis, and they prevented her from being treated in the hospital. Fascism was not easy in Libya; I believe many suffered visibly.
After World War II, the Jewish communities in Libya suffered greatly during the pogroms of 1945 and 1948, violent events that again impacted the Magiar family. Despite the legacy of these traumas, Rosita remembers her childhood as being “full and free,” lived in a small yet cosmopolitan city that was full of life and cultural exchanges. However, behind this serenity, there was always a lingering sense of concern.
There were categories of behavior
Transcript
Rosita Magiar:
Living in Libya was difficult. Let’s say we had a series of worries. It’s clear that the main pogroms occurred before my birth, but I remember the atmosphere in Libya perfectly, even when I was very young, for example, in ’56, during the Algerian war, and that same year when there was fighting in Israel. So I remember very tough, very difficult moments. We, in a certain sense, knew how to coexist with worry; we knew how to live with fear. I think many can tell you this: there were places we didn’t go, neighborhoods we didn’t attend. There were categories of behavior that we were able to adhere to, even though they weren’t explained to us in detail. But we knew we had to dress a certain way, speak a certain way, and not say things that could offend sensitivities, particularly those of Muslims. So, we didn’t truly live a free life; nevertheless, we led a free life and, in many ways, a full one. This is the contradiction one lives with when living in dangerous places.
In Tripoli, Rosita attended Italian schools, and her home was always made lively by the presence of friends and relatives, especially during Jewish holidays. Additionally, the Magiar family often traveled abroad to visit relatives in Europe, frequently passing through Italy and France. One of Rosita’s most emotional memories is her first trip to Spain, taken as a child during a cruise with her family.
There, I realized that I didn’t speak Spanish, but rather a Spanish from the sixteenth century
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Rosita Magiar:
We visited other places on small cruises; back then, cruise ships were small, not like they are now. So we went to Tunisia and, for the first time, also to Spain. I remember perfectly that before deciding to take this cruise, my father called us all together—well, I was the oldest, so I probably remember it more than the others—and said: “We are going to take this cruise, and we will also stop in Spain, we will also go to Barcelona. Now, you should know that today we are deciding to break a sort of promise, an oath we made in the family [that] no one would ever return to Spain again.” Since this exodus from Spain is always considered something that happened only yesterday in the homes of Spanish Jews, I truly felt that this escape from Spain had happened just two days earlier. I remember discussing it: Uncle Alberto, Uncle Enrico, and my entire paternal family were there, deciding to break this oath that had lasted five hundred years… I don’t know how it made it to us! It was very emotional because we also disembarked in the Balearics. It didn’t seem real that I could speak Spanish, so I spoke our Spanish, and on the other side, a gentleman replied: “Congratulations, you speak like Calderón de la Barca.” And there, I realized that I didn’t speak Spanish, but rather a Spanish from the sixteenth century. This was my encounter with Spain.
Rosita’s life changed abruptly at the beginning of June 1967, when Tripoli was shaken by demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause, coinciding with the start of the Six-Day War. On Monday, June 5, when their father had already left for work and Alice and Victor were at school, Rosita and Betty headed to their high school to see the end-of-year reports. Just as she was preparing to celebrate her graduation, Rosita heard the news of the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the Arab countries. This moment marked her transition into adulthood; she found herself reassuring her mother about the fate of her father and brothers, who were out of the house during the violent demonstrations that were raging in the city that day. In this dramatic moment, a Muslim neighbor and another neighbor of Italian origin offered to collect Rosita’s brother and sister from school, bringing them safely home. However, until her father and Uncle Enrico returned, fear dominated the household.
That day I told the biggest lie of my life
Transcript
Rosita Magiar:
Mom felt very ill; it was the first time I thought that perhaps Mom could die that day. Then she started to feel worse once the kids arrived because she was calling the office, and of course no one was answering in Dad’s office. So she was terrified that, as was being said, the men had been taken. And then I have to say that that day I told the biggest lie of my life, and I pretended to my mother that Dad had answered me on the phone while she was feeling ill. I didn’t know how to tell her because I thought, “If Dad doesn’t come back, how do I tell her…?” I kept speaking in Spanish on the phone. Only later did I realize that I had done something that belonged to an adult world. I couldn’t even tell my sister because I was afraid that…but my mom was very ill; she kept fainting, and I was scared that she would die that day. In reality, Dad returned late that evening with my uncle, accompanied by a friend who was a police colonel, who had gone to look for them and brought them back home. It was nighttime, and there was already a curfew.
After a month of isolation at home, Rosita’s family managed to obtain exit visas and boarded a flight to Rome. For Rosita, the day was filled with conflicting emotions: on the one hand, she felt relief, while on the other, she experienced deep sadness at leaving her country. This change also marked a turning point in her social relationships; in Rome, she made friends with other Tripolitan Jews whom she had not had the chance to meet in Libya.
Starting a new life in Rome proved complicated for the Magiar family. Rosita recognized everyone’s commitment to facing this challenge and admired the adults’ ability to instill courage in the younger ones despite the disorientation and difficulties. In Rome, she graduated from high school and earned a degree in political science, actively participating in Italian political life and Jewish circles. She worked in school tourism, promoting initiatives and activities focused on intercultural understanding and environmental sustainability.
