Allegra Gutta will be one of six survivors lighting torches at the State Ceremony opening Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem.

Allegra Gutta (née Naim) was born in 1928 in Benghazi, Libya and had 9 brothers and sisters. Her father Vittorio was a merchant.

In early 1942, the Italians deported most of Benghazi’s 3,000 Jews, including Allegra and her family, to the Giado concentration camp in the Libyan Desert. Allegra’s father and sisters, Fortune and Jamila, were among the hundreds of Jews who succumbed to typhus at Giado.

The British liberated Giado in 1943, and Allegra and her family returned to Benghazi. Allegra’s 2 brothers were discharged from the British army and came back to Benghazi, where they repaired their destroyed home.

In September 1948 the Naims escaped to Tripoli in the dead of night and reached Naples, Italy, with the help of the Jewish Agency. From there, they took a train to Milan. In November 1948 the family sailed from Bari, Italy to Israel. In April 1952 Allegra married Aaron Gino Gutta z”l, and they made their home in Tel Aviv. The couple has 2 children, 3 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.



Allegra Gutta relates:

“As a Holocaust survivor, I try to live a full and active life. I am in daily contact with many friends, I am part of a group of Libyan-Arabic and Italian speakers, I exercise at the gym, play bridge and enjoy my family. That is my victory over the Nazis.”
For more details: https://www.yadvashem.org/remembrance...