Överlevarna

1946 “There were some Jews living in my village, and we were friends with them. In Akka there were more Jews. If I got sick, I used to go to a Jewish doctor in Akka named Nathan. As children, we did not distinguish between Christians, Muslims, and Jews—we were friends.” 1948 “The Jews began attacking us with heavy artillery, just to scare us. Then the aerial bombardments of our village began and p...

1948 “The Egyptian army was supposed to defend the village, but when the Jews attacked at night, the Egyptians abandoned us. My mother, my older brother, and I fled into the darkness to a field where our cows and sheep were grazing. All the men stayed behind to defend the village, but when the ammunition ran out, they too were forced to flee. Two of my uncles were shot dead by the Jews. They were...

1945 “Behind our house there was a large fig tree. I used to play in the shade beneath it. Behind the house there was also a cave. My mother and grandmother gathered firewood there. They lit a fire and cooked food, fried eggs, and baked bread. My mother fetched water from a stream that ran near our house.” 1948 “We heard gunfire in the distance. It went on for several days, especially at night. Ru...

1936 “My paternal uncle was 16 years old when he was killed by Jewish guards on horseback. They struck him on the head and he died the following day. My father’s employer, a Zionist named Dubel, offered my father a bag containing 10,000 pounds in banknotes as compensation for the murder of his brother. My father refused the money, but took four pounds from the bag and said: ‘With this money I will...

1946 "We were farmers and grew wheat, olives, fruit and tobacco. Our tobacco was well-known, it was on a level with the Greek. We had different names for each area of land, depending on what we grew on it. Sometimes we slept in the fields. The land is our life, it is more important than the houses, better than working in a factory." 1948 "I was in fourth grade. We were used to the Zionists attacki...

1948 "The Zionists killed my maternal uncle, Ahmed Shaban, and three others. They were shot in front of all the villagers. My uncle, who was perhaps 30 years old, was in the resistance movement, first against the British occupation, then against the Zionists'. After the executions, people got scared. Half of my relatives fled to Syria, my paternal uncle fled to Jordan and we to Lebanon, on foot. T...

1946 ”My father owned a lot of land where he grew wheat and tobacco. He sold the tobacco to a company in ‘Akka. We had sheep, goats, camels, and cows. My father bought donkeys from Cyprus; they were strong. I used to help with the milking. I would scoop the top layer of milk from the bucket with my hand and drink it. I ran around on our land. When I think about it now, it feels as if I was flying...

1947 “Lubya was a large village. The land stretched all the way down toward Ṭabariyya. We were farmers and grew olives, figs, and grapes. Some of my brothers were able to study in Ṭabariyya. For us girls, it was not considered as important. From the time I was seven years old, I began to pray—sometimes at home, sometimes in the mosque. Our God never forgets. He records both good and bad deeds. The...

1948 “When the Zionists attacked the villages around Hamama, people fled to our village. Then our village was attacked as well. The attack came from the main road. Our men went out toward the road, but they only had old weapons to defend us with. My brother was shot in the arm. Then the Zionists began bombing us with airplanes. We left our house. We carried a little food and water with us. My pare...

“We lived in a small house on Mount Carmel. It was a mixed area with Muslims and Jews. My father worked at a cigarette factory and also sold olive oil. My brother started working at Spinneys supermarket, which was owned by a couple of Englishmen. I had seven Jewish friends in the neighborhood who sometimes came over to our home. Cohen later became a police chief under the British. Another was name...

“My father was a farmer. He grew, among other things, potatoes and tomatoes. I used to tend his sheep.” - What do you remember of your home village? “Your question is wrongly put. You should ask who kicked me out of my land. When the Israelis carried out the massacre in Dayr Yasin, it terrified many people. The rumor spread throughout all of Palestine. Our Arab leaders came to our village and told...

1947 “Near us was the Jewish village of Nesher. They visited our olive groves and we visited their homes. We were almost like siblings.”

1948 “Men, women, children, and the elderly arrived in Nablus by truck. They had been expelled from villages and towns in the surrounding area. The refugees were housed in a school. Inside, many families were gathered in one large hall. The hall was divided with pieces of cloth so that each family was given a few meters of space. It was horrible. The children cried, the women did not know what to...

1946 “I grew up in Akka. We had a shop where my father sold timber. I was part of a scout band that played music in the streets. When we passed by my father’s shop, he would come out and watch. When he caught sight of me, he would start to cry. In addition to the shop, my father had a fine carpentry workshop. He also owned a piece of land where he grew bananas, figs, and grapes. We lived a very go...

1936 “I don’t know exactly what year I was born. We didn’t use dates or years. We were illiterate. We used to say that someone was born the same year someone else died.” 1940 “My mother died when I was three or four years old. I don’t remember her. My father took several new wives. He was a shepherd, so he was away from home for long periods. His new wives beat me. They cursed my mother, even thou...

1943 “My father was a simple man who worked in all kinds of construction jobs. He was the kindest person in the world. Every time my mother chased us, he yelled at her. My father also had a cart from which he sold boiled corn. Sometimes I went with him. The cart was set up about fifty meters uphill from the clock tower in Jaffa.” 1948 “My father was cycling uphill when he was shot in the arm. But...

1943 “Palestinian Jews and Arabs lived side by side, like one family. Arabs married Jews and Jews married Arabs. They were our friends, our relatives—we protected them.”

1944 “My father had a fairly large shoe shop in Haifa. We also owned real estate. We were very well off financially. As a child, I never noticed any tension between the Jews and us. We lived next door to a Jewish family. When they celebrated Passover, they gave us matzah, and when we celebrated the New Year, we gave them maqluba.” - Did you attend the same school? ”No, we had our school and they h...

1941 “The house I grew up in was located on one of Jerusalem’s main streets. The façade was white and the door was blue. When you entered the house, you went down a few steps and arrived in a large room. On the ground floor there was a living room on the right, and on the left there were three bedrooms: one for my parents, with a balcony; one for my brother; and we three sisters shared the third b...

1946 “My father owned a lot of land where he grew grapes, figs, olives, and other crops. We also had livestock. Many people worked for us during the harvest season. My father died when I was three years old. I remember the olive harvests. The men stood on ladders picking olives, and the ones that fell to the ground were gathered by the women and carried back to the village. There were no Jews livi...

1937 “I was an only child. My father died when I was four years old. My mother remarried his cousin. They had four more children.” 1947 “I got married when I was fifteen. My husband, Mahmud, was eighteen. It was shortly before al-Nakba.” 1948 “Israeli aircraft bombed the houses in our village. My mother was at home cooking and baking bread. She closed all the doors. Our house survived, but the nei...

1948 “Before I had turned seven, we finally got a school in our village. My father wanted me to receive an education. I, along with eight other girls, started school. Four months later, al-Nakba occurred.” 1982 “After the Israelis attacked Beirut in 1982, the Red Cross issued temporary permits to travel to Palestine. My husband and I crossed the Lebanese border and stayed for one month in Ijlil al...

“I always slept next to my grandmother. I used to lie there hugging her. One evening, I woke up to gunfire and bombing. There were only children and women in the room. It was crowded. Everyone was lying on top of each other. Then I noticed that my grandmother had been shot in one breast. She was bleeding heavily. Even my twelve-year-old brother Ahmad was shot by the occupation soldiers. He was hit...

“My country is not a suitcase, and I am not on a journey.”

1948 — When was the first time you met a Jew? “It was when they bombed our village and we were forced to flee with only the clothes we were wearing. Everything else we had to leave behind. But I never actually saw them. We fled to the Christian village of Rmeisch, on the Lebanese side of the border. Friends of my parents owned a house there. They allowed us to stay for six years. They bought cloth...