On this day—October 23, 1942 An SS Einsatzkommando unit was waiting in Athens for the order to bring the Holocaust to Mandate Palestine’s Jews when British forces under Montgomery opened the Second Battle of El Alamein. By the summer of 1942, Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps had driven deep into Egypt. British forces held a defensive line at El Alamein, 60 miles west of Alexandria. From there, the road to the Suez Canal and to Mandate Palestine with nearly 600,000 Jews was open. Another 75,000 lived in Egypt, and both communities understood the danger. Reports of mass killings of Jews in Europe had already reached them. In Berlin, an Einsatzkommando under Walther Rauff was assembled and positioned in Athens. Its orders were to carry out “special operations” against the Jewish population once Axis forces advanced beyond Egypt. Local Arabs in Mandate Palestine, anticipating a German arrival, marked Jewish houses for seizure. Grandi Mufti Amin al-Husseini had already met with Hitler and sought Arab units to fight alongside German forces against the Jews and the British. On the night of October 23, Montgomery’s Eighth Army launched a massive artillery barrage and infantry assault. Over the following days, the Axis lines broke. Rommel’s forces began a long retreat to the west. The Einsatzkommando never deployed to Mandate Palestine, but it later operated in Tunisia. The battle is usually remembered as a turning point in the North African campaign. For the Jews of Mandate Palestine and Egypt, it was the point at which a planned extension of the Holocaust was halted.